Book Review: Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen

I hated this book. This book depressed me. This book made me angry. This book is very well done! Sick Puppy’s main character, Twilly, try’s to re-educate environmentally inconsiderate people by teaching them hard lessons. His latest target, the man in the Range Rover that threw his fast food wrappers and garbage out the window, just doesn’t get the message, though. Not the first message, or the second, or the third. As it turns out, this slob is a very dangerous, connected, and politically powerful man. As Twilly terrorizes him in escalating ways, he also finds out that this man is a major player in a plan to build up a virtually untouched island with hotels, malls, and condos. Now Twilly gets serious.

What I hated, more than the destruction of the environment for money, was the fact that this clown just didn’t get the message about littering. This is so true and typical about people, and it has always bothered me. Seeing it in writing was somehow maddening, though. I so wanted this man to understand how unnecessary and wrong his actions were, but he never gets it. 

Sick Puppy is an accurate portrayal of slobs that will never change, but it is also a highly entertaining book. I will certainly be trying more of Carl Hiaasen’s books.

Beyond the book...

How many of us have seen, in the parking lot of fast food restaurants, bags of garbage on the painted white lines.  This is garbage from someone sitting in their car eating, opening the door when they are done, and setting their bag full of trash on the ground next to the car.  Have you ever noticed how many garbage cans are in those parking lots?  Plenty!  The decent thing to do, if it was ever even considered, was outweighed by the effort of taking 20 steps maximum to one of the garbage cans.  This is pretty disgusting.

I have my plan if I ever catch one of these lazy pigs doing this.  I run up and grab the trash and say, “Sir/Miss, you dropped this... don’t drive off without it.”  I’ve only used it once so far.  Any more, I don’t eat at fast food restaurants more than a couple times a year, so I don’t expect many more chances. I did do a similar thing in the airport, however.  How many garbage cans are in the airport terminals? Plenty!  This lady finishes eating her food and leaves the bag of trash on the seat next to her. I get up, grab it, pass a garbage can on my way to catch her, and say, “Excuse me, you forgot this on the seat back there, and you almost got on your plane without it.” The key is to say it so they hear what you don’t say, which is, “...because I KNOW you wouldn’t litter.”

How about the people who don’t take their shopping carts to the corral? I have gotten in some pretty heated verbal battles with lazy people that do this. It is amazing that, even when you point it out nicely, people can ignore you or lash out. From now on, whenever possible, I will either stop behind their car before they can back out, or I will tip a cart over behind their car. It is such a small effort to put these things back, and it is so horrible for me to think my cart may roll away and damage someone’s car.