My Daily Reminder - *Unpleasant Photos*

Somehow, I've managed to carve out a life that includes many a long trip up and down the dusty stretch of Interstate 25 connecting Pueblo and Colorado Springs. The trip south is as delightful as ever but my northern journey home has been compromised.

About 16 miles into my trip, right about when I start my less than safe habit of eating lunch on the highway, I am accosted with the following message:

"You probably never thought about tearing off your own skin, meth will change all of that.", or something close to that.

Awesome!

What could be better? Oh yes, the picture that goes with the message. It appears to be a tub drain, maybe a sink. Either way the drain is surrounded by huge bloody chunks of what I assume is skin and a blood covered razor blade.

Nice! How is that ham sandwich and pomegranate Arizona tea going down? Not great but thanks for asking.

Aside from ruining my lunch, this annoys me on several fronts.

First, how is this not an obscenity? God forbid Coors, Jim Beam, Marlboro or Playboy have a billboard showing a little boozing, smoking or something sexually suggestive. Hell no! Then the morality police start screaming about the children and the degradation of society. Mothers fainting in the streets all over the place, fathers crying about the future with little to no dignity on display. Gimmie a break.

I have daughters and I can easily explain the sight of alcohol, smokes and scantily clad human beings. No problem. How much fun do you think it is explaining away a tub full of blood filled with razor blades? Thanks for keeping Joe Camel away though, that saved me a whole two minutes of easy parenting you hypocritical, condescending jackasses. Why don't you get back to banning dodgeball and not keeping score at baseball games.

Secondly, how is that War on Drugs going? Not good if this is what we're getting down to.

The most infuriating part of this is that I would bet every red nickle I have that we are still spending twenty times more money trying to stop marijuana use than meth. I'm sure this billboard took up no less than than 20% of the Stop Meth budget.

Rather than just being critical, I do have a couple of suggestions. First, how about a little prioritizing? Spend all your money on meth, then when you get that under control move on to heroin, the coke, then crack, then pot, red bull, aspirin, whippets, whatever. Secondly, if you are determined to use this billboard, why not put it in the city where, you know, human beings actually are? This particular billboard is right smack in the middle of nowhere between the other billboards for the local CBS affiliate and The North Pole featuring Santa's Workshop (a local amusement park for those of you non-locals). I'm sure those two groups love the connection.

Look, I hate meth and its user as much as anybody. It/they are more destructive than any other set of drug users. But really, it's bad enough that I can't get a quality cold medicine without 2 forms of ID and a DNA sample because of these societal cancers but now all of us normal folk have to be subjected to this ineffective, borderline obscene billboard and pay for it with our own tax dollars? Shame the devil!

. . . . .

Good news kiddies! I found some pics of this phenomenon to share, imagine these on huge billboards and enjoy at your own peril!

(this is the one we have in Colorado. I guess they have more in Montana.)


(awesome. . . )


(better . . . )


(disco!)


If I don't post for a while it's because I'm busy planting GPS devices in both my daughters skulls. These things take time but pay for themselves in the long run.