What an attractive title to today’s little ditty.

So I’m still enjoying my shore leave, taking in sights, sounds and smells most people never have the pleasure of enjoying. It’s been a great experience so far.

Contrarily, I am still a crotchety old man. A stick in the mud. That hasn’t changed.

Please don’t misunderstand the following statement. I like my people. I am proud to be one of the fortunate souls in the Minmatar Republic. Even if they are pigs.

I was waiting for the station monorail to arrive earlier today ( I seem to spend a lot of time waiting for transports), when a random citizen caught my attention. He was unwrapping some type of nutrition bar, and discarded the wrapper on the platform. This in and of itself is a whole other rant about saving the environment, etc, etc, but that isn’t what I want to talk about right now. If you were to look literally two feet to the right of this civvie, there was a waste disposal unit. Laziness knows no bounds.

Boy did I see red. When I think of why I fight for our people, it’s for all the freedoms we enjoy at a very high cost. One of my ancestors was in the original Eve wars, so through every generation since, it’s always been ingrained into my family to have a great sense of honour and pride in every little thing that makes us the people are. One thing we are NOT is lazy.

Being the person I am, I decided to rectify the situation. I walked over to the civilian, picked up the wrapper from the ground, and began a polite dialogue:

Roc: You seemed to have dropped this my friend.
Ignorant Civilian Cuss: What?
Roc: There’s a waste bin right there. I figured you just didn’t see it. (See how nice I am?)
ICS: Fuck you.
Roc<fuming mad>: I’m sorry. I must not have heard you correctly, civilian.
ICS: I said fuck you capsuleer. Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Are you part of the garbage police now or something? Don’t you have anything better to do with your goddamned time? Piss off.
Roc: Actually, you’re right. I do have something better to do.

At that point, I grabbed the insolent little whelp by the back of his hair, making sure my hand was solid against the roots before squeezing into a fist. As he screamed a little, involuntarily standing on his tiptoes as I knew his body would, I grabbed with my other hand at the belt buckle, and moved to our right. Stepping on the “Open” pedal for the disposal unit, I then forcefully shoved the little pissant into the opening. It was actually quite the tight squeeze and I broke out in a mild sweat from the effort. As the flap closed, a satisfying swoosh sounded, and I knew that somewhere, either stuck in a tube, or in a pile of refuse, this civilian had learned a valuable lesson.

Don’t litter.

I turned back to wait for the monorail, smirking contentedly, when I noticed an older woman staring at me, drinking some Quafe. I let the smile leave my face, and let my brow drop into a stern look. I’ve never seen an old lady move to a waste receptacle so fast.

It’s good to have an influence.