Totally Unspiritual Article of the Week

Now, this posting deserves a short preface: I have *possibly* dropped a "trucker bomb" once in my life - but fear not, it was well before I knew that they had a certified name. Hypothetically, if I *did* whiz-on-the-go, it was probably when I was stuck in horrible traffic on the I-80, tremendously late for a flight from Oakland to LAX. Also hypothetically, *if* I had done said bodily function in a 2 liter bottle, then you can be sure I had to go badly enough that over half of the container was filled. Again, if this situation had actually happened, I *probably* was running to the gate just before they closed it for boarding, constituting one of the rare occasions when it is ethically acceptable to drop a 'torpedo.'

Anyone else out there ever tried this? Leave a comment with the story; according to this article, practically everyone has...although I'm assuming that most of the offenses are limited to men, seeing as a female perpetrator would have to be unconventionally indifferent to some amount of spillage for this to be possible...

SEATTLE — Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs.

Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look.

"As soon as you look for it you’ll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington state's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It’s just gross."

They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full of urine tossed by truckers, and even non-truckers, who refuse to make a proper potty stop to relieve themselves.

The state hasn't counted how many such jugs are found each year, but a single, small county decided to do its own tally. "In one year," Warfield says, "one crew found 2,666 bottles of urine, 67 feces covered items, not including diapers, and 18 syringes."

It even happens at rest stops. "That’s the mystery," Warfield says. "There’s a bathroom right there, there’s also a trash can."

...

Mowers 'hit them, they explode'
In April, Colorado increased its "human waste" fine from $40 to $500. Transportation employees convinced lawmakers of the need for the drastic increase with their tales of finding urine jugs as they mowed roadway ditches. "We hit them, they explode. The operator ends up wearing this stuff," Randy Dobyns told state senators.

Dobyns estimated he picks up at least 50 containers a week, sometimes milk jugs, water bottles or even bags filled with urine. "The folks who dispose of this stuff are very creative in their use of containers," he said.

Some states have gone so far as to appeal to truckers themselves, but Warfield recalls how that backfired on a colleague in Arizona. "He did not get a warm reception," she says. (full article continued here.)