Glass House

I have a friend who has some strange habits. Smoking is not one of them. Bike riding is. I should also disclose that my friend is an enthusiastic and very talented math teacher. When she bikes, she spends a lot of mental energy on preoccupying herself with mathematical problems that keep her distracted and, perhaps, in the saddle a little longer. Recently, she has developed a fascination for studying an issue related to smoking. She is able to do this from her perch on her bike which makes it near perfect.
As we bike riders know, the leisurely (sort of) pace of riding combined with its open air nature gives one rich opportunity to observe the surroundings, especially the ground near the bike. My friend does this too and has recently excitedly informed me that she has begun to study the empty cigarette packages frequently discarded on the roads around Chico. Like I said, a bit strange. Anyway, she has observed that lots of empty packs get thrown on the street. I suspect she is not the only person who has made this observation, however, her mathematical mind has taken it a step further than most of us. Mathematicians are all about patterns. So she started looking more carefully at the empty packs to see if she could detect a pattern. Interestingly there actually is one. The vast majority of the empty, discarded packs are Marlboros. To be exact, as mathematicians tend to be, there have been 25 empty Marlboro packs, 5 Camel packs and a smattering of other brands (we saw an American Spirit pack on Old Humboldt road last Saturday). We are still collecting data (I say we because she has got me doing it too) but have begun the analysis phase of our research. What seems to stand out is that Marlboro smokers are litterbugs.