I’ve been traveling this week and putting a lot of interstate highway behind me. So I’ve see a lot of signs: “$1000 Fine For Littering.” Ho, hum, I guess a hundred ten-spots out the window would make “fine” litter, eh? I should be so rich.

Stupid sign.

Then I got to the great state of Washington. Climbing the north shore of the grand Columbia, I spotted the first new anti-litter warning:

IF YOU LITTER,
IT WILL HURT!

It’s a testimony to the power of blogging and the global microbrand, I think, that when my sleepy road-hypnotized eyes took in the first of these signs, my inner voice spoke unbidden: “If you litter it will hurt? Wow, they must be working with Mistress Matisse!”

Alas, back here in the real world, I expect that if they put Mistress Matisse in charge of the littering punishments, there’d be a sudden rash of fresh garbage along Washington’s highways.