Two Cent’s Worth

September 16th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

This morning was much cooler and partly cloudy.  Nice walk.  We didn’t see any of our regular honkers and found no money.  Early in our walk, we removed a roadkill rabbit from the road.

To keep our ball-finding streak alive, we found two balls.  The baseball was outside a school yard, so we tossed it back over the fence.  The dog ball looked to come from a nearby yard so we tossed it back also.  Too bad.  They were both in good condition and would have looked good in our ball collection.

At the KinderCare, we found another toss ring.  We tossed it back over the fence to the dinosaurs, but they just stared at us.  No opposable thumbs.

Some kid did a number 2 on the grass at KinderCare.  Yes, we cleaned it up.

Along Juanita Woodinville Way, several mushrooms are growing.  They are springing up like, well, mushrooms.  Large mushroom.  Or, small  foot.

Ford Drive 4 UR School.  From the website,  “For every valid test drive taken in a Ford vehicle at a registered one-day event, Ford will donate $20 to the participating school.”  According to their calendar, there was an event  at Juanita High School in Kirkland on Saturday.  It appears they are also testing how it feels to litter from a Ford vehicle.

Three weeks ago, we found some pruning shears along Juanita Woodinville Way and put them on a fence so the owners might see them.  They are still there.  You may think we’re full of prunes, but it’s a shear disgrace to let pruning shears hang there for three weeks.

Jaycie had a boring day.  No biting or anything.   Or is this a to-do list?

More stolen mail.  Two pieces of junk mail and a county home property value notice used for tax assessment purposes.  Now if King County would use some of those taxes catching and prosecuting the people who steal mail, that would be great.  And Porch Pirates.  And car break-in thieves.  And…

Near Safeway, we found a short fiber optic part.  It made a nice flashlight attachment, but not very practical for finding litter.  Into the recycle bag.

Someone left us a muffin on the sidewalk.  Unfortunately, the bag was soaked and when we picked up the bag, the muffin fell out and smashed on the sidewalk.  Well, the muffin was probably soaked also.  [Sour Grapes. Or muffins.]  Anyway, we kicked into the weeds, so now it’s a meadow muffin.

Another capped needle.  Such thoughtful druggies.

Someone lost their bearings like we did the other day.  But it had no bearing on our walk.

Then, walking over Norway Hill, we found a McMess.  This and more was scattered along fifty feet of roadway.  It seems they are scattering it on purpose.  One day when they have grandchildren, they’ll tell them fond stories of the littering they’ve done.  Unfortunately, the kids will be learning from their grandparents too.

We may be naive, but last week, we learned a new term: To murder out a car.  It’s basically turning a car as matte black as possible.  And today, one appears on Norway Hill. A murdered-out Mercedes.  The term appears to have been around for many years.  Kind of interesting, actually.  Maybe we should murder out our Nissan Leaf?

We found another Budweiser can full of slugs along with a bag of cans.  We shook the slugs out of the can and carried the bag home.  The bag contained three more Bud cans and a cardboard coffee cup.  We thought one of the cans in the bag had a slug in it.  But it was a couple of cigarette butts.  Thanks.  So the coffee was to counteract the effects of the four beers before you went to work?  Great.  A wide-awake drunk.

Finally, on a sad note.  Someone kicked the bucket.  Well, it probably dropped from a vehicle then got hit by another.  The bucket is about $10 on Amazon.  However, some casters were epoxied to the bottom of the bucket.  So, add $4 or $5 each which makes it worth $25 or so.  It was a really nice, sturdy bucket.  But, it still got recycled.

 

September 17th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

This morning was a bit warmer than yesterday but still comfortable.  The weather app indicated that it would start raining near the end of our walk.  At about our midway point the app alerted us that rain would be starting soon.  However, the rain held off until we were done, then let loose.  Nice timing.  We found no money but did get a wave from the Salinas Construction driver.

Early in our walk on 112th Ave, we found a roll of tape in the street.  It was anticorrosion tape to protect buried pipes from rusting.  We weren’t aware there was such a thing.  It would have been useful to use on some corrosive people we have known.

On a sign entering a neighborhood, someone tacked up a CD.  The only thing we can think of is maybe they wanted something shiny to attract people?  Upon reflection, that’s not a bad idea.

Someone tossed a folded up piece of paper.  We felt something inside and when it was unfolded, there was a gift-wrapped cigarette butt!  Gee, thanks, you shouldn’t have.  Really, you SHOULDN’T HAVE!

Behind some switch gear on Juanita Woodinville Way, we found a beer mug.  It was near an area where we suspect some homeless people are living, so maybe they had a kegger.  When we went to keggers, we used those red Solo cups, not beer glasses.

 

The sun rose as we crested Norway Hill and headed toward home.  We were treated to a nice sunrise as the rain clouds closed in.

Near a bus stop, we found these smashed items.  When we got home, we figured out that Scosche makes magnetic smartphone mounts.  Evidently this one failed and the phone got destroyed.  On the reverse side was the glass from the phone case still stuck to the mount.  Samsung Duos.  Weak magnet.  Strong glue, though.

 

September 18th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Well, turnabout is fair play, we guess.  Today’s temperature was similar to yesterday, but instead of holding off the rain until we finished our walk, it rained throughout our walk and stopped as we got home.  Thank you very much.  We didn’t find any money.  Come on, people.  This is when you should toss the money you saved for a rainy day.

Someone dropped a nice pair of safety glasses on the road.  The verdict is out.  Keep them or send them to GoodWill.  Probably GoodWill.

We kept our eyes on the ball and it paid off.  Not an especially good ball, but it kept the ball-finding rolling.  

Hey if you don’t like our puns,  put a sock in it.

Someone left a tub at a bus stop.  It was near where we left some dumped wood last week, so we put some of the wood in it and left it for pick-up.  It was an Ikea product.  It is part of a toy storage unit.  Probably another case of the kid playing with the packaging instead of the toy.

This was the most torn-up, one-piece can we have found.  The ones we normally find that meet a mower are chopped up in multiple pieces.  This one was probably slowly tortured apart in traffic.

There appears to be a Taco Time take-over.  We find both McDonalds and Taco Time litter on the Hill, but recently, Taco Time seems to be dominant.  Those of you heavily invested in McDonalds should take note.  We aren’t invested in them, except for picking up the McMesses.  We are considering investing in Taco Time, though.

On Juanita Woodinville drive, someone tried to plant some turf on the road.  Great. We’ll need to get a small lawn mower.  However, on further investigation, it was a square of artificial grass.  We rolled it up and recycled it.

The turf was near the dangerous intersection of NE 145th and Juanita Woodinville Way NE.  It’s a bad intersection because most of the morning traffic travels south on 145th and turns left on Juanita Woodinville Way.  When someone with the right-of-way, travels north through the intersection, we have seen a few accidents.  Today, while rolling up the sod, we heard a honk.

A left-turning, southbound car on 145th correctly yielded to an oncoming car.  Some idiot in a truck (our technical term) honked at it, passed on the right and made a left-hand turn in front of the oncoming car (on an yellow light) and continued past us.  A video of the incident is here.

 

September 19th, 2019 – Park-and-Ride Route.

We had nice weather for our walk.  It was cool and started out clear.  At the end of our walk, a fog had rolled in, but we had no rain, which was nice.  We got a wave from the Salinas Construction driver and a couple of busses, but again found no money.  Misers.  We also didn’t remove any roadkill.

In the Park-and-Ride parking lot, we picked up a wrapper for pine-scented incense cones.  Okay, so now a smoker is trying to remove the smoking odor from his car by adding pine-scented smoke?  That is ridiculous!  Stick to the Little Trees.  We’re incensed!  At least cigarettes have filters.

Someone thoughtfully left us an emergency plastic bag tied to a signpost. They need to add a sign: “In case of trash, take bag.”

We found a page from a set of house plans.  It was for a new house in Bellevue.  According to Google Maps, the house was being built in November of last year.  Hopefully, they didn’t need this page to finish the project.

Another sex enhancement pill wrapper. The guy must have been pretty anxious to open it on his way home,  if he was going home.  We’ve picked up several of these before, but this is the most graphic language we’ve seen.  The product is Libigrow.  As with others we’ve found,  The FDA determined that it contains the unlisted active ingredient in Viagra.  They probably paid the FDA to state that.

 

September 20th, 2019 – Safeway Route.

Today it was cool and overcast.  Another nice walk.  No roadkill and none of our regulars.  But we did find some money.  We know, one cent.  But it’s something.  This brings our hourly wage this week to $0.001 per hour.  That is way below the $12 minimum wage in Washington.  We may sue the State to force the litterers to toss more money out their windows.  Just cut down on your smoking and toss out dollars instead of cigarette butts.  Makes sense to us.

We did find another ball.  This was obviously from a nearby yard, so we returned it.  But we’ll claim it a as find.

At the KinderCare, we found another toss ring outside the fence.  We tossed it back to the dinosaurs.  Like earlier, the dinosaurs just stared at us.  This is going to be a very slow game.

We came across a sign that had nothing to say.  We’re sure they’re holding late-night meetings to determine what cause they will promote.  If it’s still blank on Monday, we’ll change it to “Support the Minimum Wage for Trash Walkers.”  We can feel the groundswell of public support building.

“Today I made a basket like Little Red Riding Hood.”  Well, I made a wolf mask.

“The better to eat you with, my dear.”  Oh, come on, get your mind out of the gutter.

At the bus stop.  Needed to kill some time.  “A couple of smokes, a bottle of water, and oh, need to floss.  The bus is coming.  Wait, where’s my bus transfer?”

We found an eCigarette butt.  Given the bad press vaping is getting lately,  this eCig butt was being honest.

At the location where the person chopped the tree up, we found the U.S. flag down.  We replaced it onto the sign post.  If it is down again on our next walk, we will give it a proper burial.

We found this notice for a back-to-school BBQ for the Helen Keller Elementary School.  A date would be nice.    Shouldn’t it be in braille too?

Another week goes by without a tenant. This is beginning to look like a government pork barrel deal.  Unneeded government-funded homeless moth housing?  Especially when Trash Walkers are underpaid.

Near the top of the Tolt pipeline, a crow picked up something from my side of the road and dropped it on Janet’s.  I can live with that.  It was a coconut lip balm.  $37 for two?  Really?  Stupid crow didn’t know what it had.  Then again, crows don’t have lips.

 

September 21st, 2019 – Riverside Drive.

This morning was cool and overcast again.  We got several waves but no honks.  we did move a crow and a large rat into the bushes and found another penny!  This doubles our hourly rate for this week.  Guess that’s our two cents’ worth.

Wrapping up the week, gloves. 

And dog poop bags.  The poop-bag droppers are back in full force.  They must have returned from the Irresponsible Pet Owners’ Convention in Las Vegas.

We also found two more balls.  The one on the right was tossed out with some trash by the side of the road.  We couldn’t tell if it was happy that we picked up the trash or if it was laughing at us.  Either way, it’s now in our ball collection.

At the Sammamish River Park parking lot we found another small wine bottle.  This has been an almost weekly occurrence for a long time.

Someone left us some cookie dough.  2.12 ounces.  Great, we can bake a cookie.

“Last week I couldn’t spell trainor. ”  “Now I are one.”

Someone dropped their shorts.  Maybe they belong to Colin.  Afterall, he dropped his name tag.

The city is restriping the road.  We don’t think this will last.  Especially if you don’t press it flat when you place it on the road.

We spotted this mess on the Sammamish River access road.  It looks like multiple dumpings.  The latest had a lot of remote controls.   The last time I reported this to King County, they indicated they would continue to monitor the road.  We’ll see.

Last week we mentioned that the guy who owned this trailer sprang for white-sidewall tires.  

On closer inspection, he didn’t.  They’re painted.