A Box From Guatemala

Monday, August 17th, 2020 – Safeway

This morning was a very warm 68F, too warm for walking. But we walked anyway. We found no money and no roadkill. We should have stayed home.

But we did find half a bottle of Germ-X hand sanitizer.

$8 on Amazon, so this is about four dollars worth. Does that count?

We found a water balloon, a really small one.

This must be the B-B gun of water balloons.

In a wooded area about thirty feet off the sidewalk we saw a bunch of trash under a tree.

There was also a small duffle bag and two syringe caps on the ground.

We picked up the trash and carried the bag out to the sidewalk. It was empty except for nine more needle caps. What did they do with the needles? This area is next to a small creek. We’re sure kids play in here. Miscreants.

We did find another tool.

A Sawzall blade. It was not in good condition and got recycled.

As we approached the end of our walk, some kind soul left us some cookies and croissants.

Now, if they had left them anyplace other than atop their Food Waste Cart…

Tuesday, August 18th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

Today was a more comfortable 59F and a more normal day. We removed a roadkill bird from the street and found some money in the park-and-ride driveway.

The nickel was a bit beat-up but we gladly accepted it.

We also found this frisbee on the driveway.

We searched for all combinations of “flying” “speedy” and “jp522” on Google and didn’t find hits. Well, JP522 did match a distributor cap for a 1967 Mazda 1000 Coupe, but we’re pretty sure this is not a distributor cap. Recycled.

Yet another pair of Apple ear buds.

Smashed by cars What are these folks listening to when they toss their ear phones out the window? These days, the answers are endless, but I think we can all agree on yet another PSA on the [symptoms, preventions, you-name-it] of the Coronavirus.

We did find a couple of tools. Kind of.

A Sawzall blade in much better condition than the last one. Just a bit used.

Then another bungee cord.

It was too rough to put in our collection. Yes, it’s harsh, but someone needs to make the hard decisions.

Today we picked up some relatively heavy items. Not overwhelmingly heavy, but annoyingly heavy.

An eight-inch bolt.

It was in good condition, but what would we ever use it for?

Another lost bicycle lock.

This had been run over, so would not lock even if we had a key. More weight to recycle.

Finally, a lost truck brake pad.

We’ve found several brake pads on our walks, but we know that if you lose breaking on a wheel it is a bad situation. Give us a break, we are not brake experts. Ok, for you beginners, PUN INTENDED.

Wednesday, August 19th, 2020 – Safeway

Another comfortable day for a walk. We found no money but did remove a roadkill rabbit from the road. We found gloves, a poop bag that we report on at the end of the week and a couple of discarded masks that we do not report on. Other than that, we found mostly random normal trash – basically an uninteresting morning.

We did find what we thought was a towelette you get after a barbeque meal at a restaurant. Well, when they were open, anyway.

But is was a “Personal Safety Equipment Cleaning Pad.” We assume the “Personal Safety Equipment” are your fingers and the substance you are cleaning is Barbeque sauce. It looks like a towelette.

Thought for the day: What would you think a year ago if you walked into a bank and were told you could not enter without a mask?

Thursday, August 20th, 2020 – Park-and-Ride

This morning was another warm morning at 64F, but we also got a light rain to cool us off. We had our second blah day with no money, no roadkill and little of interest.

We picked up a smashed syringe with the cap still on the business end.

We put it in a plastic bottle, carried it home and put it in our needle jar. We still need to figure out how to get rid of these. King County has a “Needle Exchange Program” that seems to exchange used needles for new ones. This seems reasonable. Can we exchange our used needles at an Exchange center and at least get new needles to donate somewhere? Are people who show up required to present a used needle to exchange? We need to do some research.

The only other thing we found of any interest was a baseball.

And that was only because it lost its skin and its ribs were showing.

We can always hope for a better day tomorrow.

Friday, August 21st, 2020 – Safeway

It’s tomorrow and it was a slightly better day. Except for the weather, that is. It was another warm morning at 66F and humid. We didn’t find any money, but removed a roadkill rabbit from the street. We’d rather have money.

We were visited by the McLitterers again, but something is very different.

Same neatly-wrapped bag, same unopened utensils and condiments, but the platters have changed. Up till now, the containers were more platter shaped and had a black bottom. These are round and clear. We’re not sure we can handle the change.

We found a rare pair of socks.

They were half a block apart on opposite sides of Juanita-Woodinville Way. It was kind of a big deal. Ok, or not. But we’re sure Goodwill will be thrilled. Or not.

Someone’s 2018 boat parking permit.

Did he lose his boat? Maybe it gave him the slip? [Groan]

This was kind of weird.

We found a sealed pound jar of Cheese Balls, and artificially flavored. None of that musty real-cheese smell for us. No, we don’t trust these. We left it by a Papa John’s Pizza Store door. Perhaps one of their drivers will want it. They’re called Guinea pigs.

But the theme today was wildlife. We’ve seen deer, raccoons, bob cats and other animals on our walk. Today, we found two slugs in a life-and-death struggle over some unidentified something.

It was pretty tense. Enthralled, we watched for at least seventeen seconds before we moved on.

But wait, it got even better. Another salamander.

We shined our flashlight on it and it froze. As we watched for at least 30 seconds, it actually took two steps forward. Such an exciting morning.

But wait, there was more. Of course, you’ve heard of the World Lumberjack Championship in Hayward, Wisconsin.

Today we witnessed the Woodpecker Telephone-Polejack contest.

This looked like the mixed doubles match. The electric company should be worried.

Saturday, August 22nd, 2020 – Riverside Drive

This morning’s walk was cooler and more pleasant than yesterday with some light mist here and there. No roadkill, but we did find some money.

Eleven cents! The dime was found on the freeway on-ramp and the penny was found on Riverside Drive. Not much, but better than nothing.

Here is this week’s glove and poop bag report.

A ho-um eleven gloves and eight bags. We were trying to shame the poop bag droppers, but obviously it hasn’t helped. And with the Pandemic, gloves have become commonplace. We will check with the judges to see if we can drop this feature without losing our national ranking. Stay tuned.

At the Sammamish River parking lot, we picked up a moderate amount of trash including these two bottles.

Two unopened, two-liter bottles of Diet Twist Up that we’ve never heard of. That’s about a gallon of a drink obviously no one wants. We emptied them and recycled the bottles. No, we didn’t taste it.

We found two bungee cords today, the only thing of real use we picked up.

Both were found on the off-ramps of the freeway. One was near pristine and the other can be made serviceable with a little effort. Both will go into our collection.

Someone else lost their shirt.

This time it was a guy. This was found along Riverside Drive and was very dirty. It went into the next available dumpster. Sorry, Goodwill.

Another lost hubcap.

It was nondescript and broken. Recycled.

In the same vein, on our walks, we’ve picked up a lot of lost lug nuts. We pulled this wheel out of the ditch.

This is what happens if lug nuts are loose. The weight of the vehicle on the wheel studs elongate the holes in the wheel and eventually it wanders off on its own.

Someone tossed their tape measure out the window.

It probably didn’t measure up.

Under the freeway on Riverside Drive, we picked up this tape.

We almost tripped on it.

On the freeway off ramp where a guy regularly plays a guitar, someone gave him a can of Lasagna.

He must not like Italian food.

Last Saturday, we pulled this wooden box of clothes out of the weeds into the parking lot in Bothell in hopes someone would do something with it.

Someone did. They dumped it out, so today we cleaned it up.

Among the rotting clothing there was a bag of random items.

A Safeway Rewards Card, an Orca Card, a broken bong and a “Proper Attire” condom. We never thought of condoms as attire, but there you go.

The box had some interesting labels on it.

First, the Pan Am Clipper Cargo sticker shows its old. Pan Am went out of business in 1991. However, this logo shows a prop plane, not a swept-wing jet liner. Second, the address tag shows a delivery address as “San Francisco 27 Cal.” The 27 is a postal zone code that was implemented in 1943 and replaced in 1963 by the zip code system. So this box was probably shipped in that range.

The shipper was Anna B. de Mohr of Guatemala City, Guatemala. Searching for her online we got a hit in a catalog of tokens published online by Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala.

These tokens were used from the mid 1850s to the early 1900s as currency for farm owners to pay farm workers.

We also found a visa for Anna online showing she visited New York in 1960.

It shows her birthdate as “2/10/92” meaning 1892, so she would have been 68 at the time. And, like the box she sent, she arrived on Pan Am flight 503. Wonder if she lost her luggage?