objects in mirror

I was driving around Austin one breezy summer evening with the windows rolled down, and having grown tired of the sugarless chewing gum I was chewing, I decided to spit it out the window. 


I never throw anything out the window, never -- okay maybe an occasional apple core -- but that evening some lazy part of me took charge. Overriding my mother's voice in my head warning me of the choking hazard my littered gum might pose to a hungry and unsuspecting baby bird, and ignoring my long-standing disdain for litterbugs of all stripes, I decided to spit it out the window.

I could just as easily have fished an empty wrapper from the cup-holder and saved some hiker's sole. I could just as easily have swallowed it down with a sip of water and spared a baby bird's life, but I wanted to get rid of it right then and right there.

Puckering my lips, I centered the gum in the valley of my tongue, took a deep breath in, and made peace with the small amount of guilt I knew I'd surely feel afterward. "Just this once," I thought to myself. "No big deal, really. No one will ever know." Frankly, I'd already moved on.

Then I turned my head toward the passenger window and spit the gum out. Splot. It landed on the sideview mirror, smack dab in the center of it, framed. It was like it was looking back at me. OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR, like a caption beneath my sin.