Yesterday, I stood outside a small-town burger joint. As I waited, I took stock of my surroundings and my eyes gradually settled upon the large wooden barrel that sat next to me. It had become a sort of makeshift ashtray and I found myself pondering the pasts of the hundreds of cigarette butts that canvased its surface. A woman's hand came into view, taking hold of my attention, and I watched as she extinguished her cigarette. As she nestled it in the sand among the others, my eyes naturally crept up her arm, to her torso, and then down to her very pregnant belly.
I was on my way home from a weekend trip and we had stopped to fill up both our gas tank and our stomachs. Thankfully, I had not eaten yet because the sight of this woman and the obvious disregard she had for the well being of her unborn child was enough to make my stomach turn.
Habits of any kind can be a hard thing to break. But if the vast responsibility that accompanies pregnancy is not enough to deter one from a bit of short-lived pleasure, I don't know what is.
In that brief moment, in the most unspectacular of experiences, I lost a bit of the already dwindling faith I have in humanity.
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