Hey, I actually got >yelled< at once for walking over to a garbage can to throw away my cigarette.
I'd just gotten off the plane at Sea-Tac airport and walked out to the departures curb to have a cigarette. It was pretty late, so there weren't many people around. 2 guys smoking about 20 feet away and a lady about 30-40 feet in the other direction. I walked up to the guys to ask for a light and then went back to wait for my ride. I purposedly stayed farther from the lady, since she wasn't smoking. But, a minute or 2 later, she comes over and tells me, in a pissy voice, "You can't smoke here." I was flabbergasted (see, smokers can use big words, too!!) at first, since I had no idea what she was talking about.
But, then I looked around and noticed the little signs saying no smoking allowed. I lived in Seattle up 'til 5 years ago, and I still fly back about once a month, and I've >always< smoked up at the departure curb (along with tons of people). But, apparently after 9-11, they changed the policy to only allow smoking on the downstairs arrivals curb. So, I say "Sorry, my mistake" to the lady, put out the cigarette, walk over to a trash can and throw away the butt. The lady follows me and says "What are you doing?!?" I look back with this perplexed look on my face. She then says "You're gonna start a fire!" I'm incredulous (wow, another big word!!) at this point, so I say "What the F@#K do you want me to do with it? Throw it in the street?". She started stammering and might've blurted out "Yes", while I walked back inside to cool off. Man, was I pissed off.
BTW, the butt was definitely out. I've had years of practice at putting cigarettes out. I'm proud to say I'm an expert cigarette-puter-outer (Okay, that's a made-up big-word). Never started a fire in a trash can or burned a forest down!!
