You'll Be Glad This One Has No Accompanying Photo

While the girth, smoothness, texture and overall quality of the highways' shoulders changes from province to province, the detritus borne of thousands of passing cars--sometimes the only reminder that highways are, in fact, human landscapes--has remained both constant and consistent across the nation. Take a peek at the shoulder of the highway anywhere in Canada and you will find: Tim Hortons cups; brown plastic lids that have become disembodied from their Tim Hortons cups; empty beer bottles (great, so we're drinking and driving AND littering); small crescent shaped pieces of metal missing two bolts at the top (for the life of me I can't figure out what these pieces of metal are, but they are ubiquitous); empty water bottles sporting claims of various and sundry origins and pedigrees; the rubber shards that indicate a tire's violent death; and, yes, weirdly enough, dental floss (the kind that's threaded onto a little plastic pick with two points so that, presumably, you can floss with one hand while driving). Aside from the dental floss and the apparently disposable pieces of mystery metal, I could probably have predicted what Canadians are throwing out their car windows. With one other notable exception.

I noticed almost immediately, way back in BC, that people throw out a surprising number of half-finished bottles of apple juice. Sure, none of these bottles actually bore apple juice labels and were more often than not Pepsi or Coke bottles with faded, peeling labels. But what do I know? Hell, I even half-envisioned parents lovingly pouring apple juice into an old water bottle (in an effort to reduce and reuse even!) so that their toddler could have a drink on their long road trip (only to have their toddler throw the bottle out the window in a Terrible Twos fit of temper, or...something like that).

It took me until Ontario. And even then I didn't quite get to it on my own. No, I went and said it out loud: "You notice people throw out a lot of apple juice?" And Kieran's face got a kind of squirmy look and then, finally, I knew.

It's PEE. People are PEEING IN BOTTLES AND THROWING THEM OUT THE WINDOW.

Now, sure, it was ridiculous for me to labour for so long under my apple juice delusion, but where I come from, well, you just don't do that. No, where I come from, you pull over and scoot behind a bush to drop trow LIKE A CIVILIZED HUMAN BEING.

Have we not already taken things far enough? I mean, we've all but moved into our cars as it is: eating, and listening to music, and talking on the phone, and watching DVDs, and, apparently, flossing our teeth while we drive. Now we're reaching under the seat to find an old Diet Coke bottle to act as an impromptu toilet? And, uh, while you're, erm, using your Coke bottle,WHAT IF YOU HIT A BUMP?!?