Between a great Thanksgiving weekend, Freight Farms Kickstarter project being featured on a number of my favorite websites and this weather this week was looking to be pretty good.

Overall, the week is still looking good but my commute this morning pulled be out of my great outlook on life for just a few minutes.  As I was cruising up Main St, as I often do, sweating (and loving it) on this great November morning a routine occurrence quickly changed all that.  At least a few times a week I endure near misses from the flicking of cigarette butts as cars pass me.  It’s a small hazard of biking or walking near vehicles and it never really bothered me.  This is probably because I’ve only suffered the near miss but never the direct hit.  I had assumed that having a lit cigarette bounced off of you would be  the worst possible fate due to items discarded by drivers.

Turns out that assumption was TOTALLY WRONG!  As I approached a red light, I decided to ease to a stop rather than crank all the way to the light.  As I did, a low riding red sedan passed me, almost stopped at the light and turned right.  As it did the passenger discarded, what I assumed, a cigarette.  I noticed the cigarette was too long, skinny and looked shiny as it bounced past my front tire.  Upon further inspection, the object that had nearly hit me was a Heroin Needle!

As I pressed on, I had no idea how to feel about that.  I had seen drug paraphernalia before but this was different.  The GD thing almost hit me.  I never thought that hypodermic needles would ever be a real CarFree threat.  I was happy for them to remain the punchline in a really inappropriate jokes.  But it’s not as funny when it’s REAL!

So that leaves me longing for the days when the biggest threat from drivers tossing sh*t out the window was a lit cigarette.  I can honestly say, I never thought I would say that!