Killer Bunny

Monday, April 5th, 2021 – Safeway

We spent a nice Easter with our grandkids in two batches. Our older g-kids ages 9, 12 and 14 hid plastic eggs for the youngest 18-month-old. His contained granola bars and small stuffed animals. But he was more interested in putting an egg back together than the contents.

Then Chuck hid the older kid’s plastic eggs filled with dollar bills, except for three plastic carrots (don’t ask), one for each of them, with ten a dollar bill in each. In the past, we used quarters and five dollar bills. When they were young, they liked the change, but now they like folding money. We get it, so do we.

We found a plastic egg left for us on our walk and we had high expectations.

But, it was only half an egg, and empty. But then, on Easter morning, the tomb was also empty.

Over the weekend, we spotted this shoe in the middle of the road near the 7Eleven on Juanita-Woodinville Way.

It sat unscathed. Janet retrieved it today and left it by the 7Eleven gas pumps in case someone recognizes it. Fat chance. Chuck would have chucked it into the recycle bin. Pun intended.

We did find another lug nut, this time the nut did not loosen, the stud failed.

We found an article about another stud failure. “Barney Roy could return to training as fertility issues curtail stallion career.” Do you have to tell everyone? Leave a guy some dignity.

Nearing home, Janet spotted a beer can down an embankment and sent Chuck down.

Of course, you can’t find just one. We ended up with a whole collection of trash hiding in the ivy.

Tuesday, April 6th, 2021 – Park-and-Ride

Today was cold and dry. We found money!

A penny! We are always happy to find money each week because we know we will not be shut out, which happens. But, wait, this is a Canadian penny. So, it is only worth about 0.79 cents, but we’ll still count it. Who knows, maybe some day Canada will let us cross the border again.

Today we found another shoe near where we found the one yesterday.

We’re glad it’s not a match because we’d be sorry we didn’t keep the Monday one.

Someone discarded a strange brush.

It looked interesting so we used Google Lens to investigate it, but it only came back with pictures of eels. They’ve a ways to go on that app.

We have been greeted by this guy on our walks for several weeks.

He started out on the other side of the crosswalk and we helped him across the street. Then, a few weeks ago we found him face-down on the ground and we placed him back in his perch. Today, he was gone. Perhaps he wanted out all along and we were humiliating him. Okay, we don’t know if it was a him or a her. Or… Never mind.

We found a yo-yo.

Wow, we have seen everything get smaller and cheaper since our childhood. This yo-yo is 1.5 inches in diameter, made of plastic and very light. What is the world coming to?

Okay, after some research, we were wrong. Yo-yos have gone high-tech and quality yo-yos can be purchased for a price. You can still buy the dollar Duncan Yo-yo for five bucks.

But the high-tech models cost big bucks.

“Made of Aluminum Alloy and 10-Ball Bearings, with Up to 8 Minutes Idling Time.” This for only a cool $300. Now we understand how you can do this.

Now try doing walk-the-dog or the cats-cradle with a one-dollar Duncan with a wood axle and no bearings. Kids have it so easy these days.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2021 – Safeway

The weather was milder today at 42°F (5.5°C). We did remove a roadkill rabbit from 112th Ave NE. Unfortunately for us, one of the signs of spring is the increase in roadkill. However, we did find tools today.

Two drill sockets together. We find many of these, but these were within three-feet of each other. We looked around for more, thinking a socket set got dropped, but no dice.

This caused some confusion.

Two pens together and Chuck had no clue.

We don’t like finding these.

A water bottle filled with yellow liquid. We’re not sure what it is, but we’ve read the stories about Amazon drivers peeing in bottles. We carefully emptied it into the bushes and sealed the bottle back up. And yes, we wear rubber gloves.  See number 7 of our top ten reasons to wear gloves.

We wore our new pairs of shoes today, our eleventh pair of Brooks Adrenaline GTSs. Pop Quiz:

Which shoe has six miles on it and which has 630 miles? We’ll provide the answer next week.

Thursday, April 8th, 2021 – 160th to 124th Street

It was a bit cooler this morning, but Spring is here. We again removed a rabbit from 112th Ave NE. We didn’t find any money, but did find a tool for our collection.

A nice quarter-inch socket extension. Okay, it was a bit rusty, but had not been run over. Much.

This may have been a dog brush.

The handle was gone, probably chewed off by the dog. No opposable thumb, after all.

There was an enticing small soccer ball along a fence.

But there was a rain-filled moat between us. We’ll wait until the waters subside.

Another pair of broken sunglasses.

Obviously damaged and missing a lens. However, we were able to track them down. These are relatively expensive sunglasses at fifty bucks a pop. Okay, we’ll give you a the dollar-discount for the missing lens.

We found another neck gaiter.

This one appears to be a give-away for attending KLB construction’s safety meeting. We almost tripped on it.

Speaking of safety, at the park-and-ride, someone left a half can of Chipotle Sauce and a half can of Sliced Jalepeno Peppers. No other food debris was in evidence.

This appears to have been an ugly suicide attempt. Death by peppers.

Friday, April 9th, 2021 – 100th Ave NE

Another cold, dry day with lots of honks, light blinks and waves.  During the winter when we wave at folks, all we see are glaring headlights. Now, as the sunrise inches back, about half of our walk times are now light enough so we can see folks waving to us which is very encouraging.  

And, we found a half dollar!

Unfortunately, despite searching the area, we couldn’t find the other half. Technically, if you have more than half of a bill, it can be counted as legal tender, but with this one, it would be hard to tell. We could probably meticulously calculate the area and compare it to a whole dollar bill and present it to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, but in the end, it is only a dollar. Now, if it was a twenty, we might consider it.

Another shoe.

This seems to be a week of finding shoes. This one was buried and moss-covered. We didn’t even look for it’s mate.

We did find some tools.

Two utility knives, neither was worth keeping due to being run-over.

Also a saw blade.

A Sawzall blade. Used, but still in good condition. It’s good to be on the cutting edge.

Walking down Norway Hill, nearing our home, out of the corner of his eye, Chuck saw a rabbit charging at him and he had a flashback to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

But, it wasn’t a rabbit but a small, five-pound toy poodle.  But Chuck was still wary.

It was out in the road, so we coaxed it to us and picked it up. Chuck ended up carrying it home where we fed it and posted it on the Next Door app. Within minutes, the owner responded and collected the delinquent. No kibbles for you today.

Saturday, April 10th, 2021 – Riverside Drive & Brickyard Road

We started out in a sleet, then rain. Then it was dry for a while and then the warm sun was out, then back to sleet. We removed a roadkill squirrel from the street and found money.

We went into the bushes to pick up a mess near our favorite trailer park, not, and found a penny. We would rather have missed the penny instead of having to pick up the trash.

In front of the trailer park a bunch of unwanted items were left by the road.

Among other things, a table, refrigerator, lawn mower and emergency fire escape ladder. There was also a message board with some random letters in it. We put the letters, “SEERRRISIOAPROOA” into an anagram solver and it came up with,

SIR, PRAISE AERO-ROO,

Which we translated to “Sir, praise the flying kangaroo.” there may have been a few letters missing.

At the beginning of our walk on the way down the hill, we retrieved a Dollar Tree store bag that was tossed down the bank.

Inside was a candle from the store. It appears someone lit it and laid it on the side so the wax melted and overflowed. Good way to start a fire.

On a walk in January, we found two plastic mini-bottles that had been wedged into a storm drain grate. We spent an inordinate amount of time attempting to free them and decided we would need a tool.

Each Saturday as we passed the grate, we promised ourselves that the next Saturday we would bring a tool. Today, we finally remembered a large screwdriver and successfully pried them loose. And, yes, they were empty.

A lost Peruvian-style knit cap.

It was in good condition. We’ll wash it and put it in the Goodwill box.

Another lost lug nut.

This one was on the freeway offramp. Good thing it wasn’t the onramp.

Also two lost hubcaps.

The one on the left was early in our walk along Riverside Drive. Fortunately, across the street was a recycle bin. The other one was on Juanita-Woodinville Way near the park-and-ride where a car went over a curb and crashed through the fence. It was mostly buried and probably part of the wreckage. We carried it home to recycle.

We found another socket.

This one had the words, “Do not use while engine is running” stamped on it. After some research, we found it is an oil pressure sending unit socket for 1991 and newer GM cars and 1987 and newer Chryslers. Talk about specialized. Chuck used to use pump-handle pliers.

Two condoms.

The one on the left was found along Riverside Drive and the one on the right was found at the park-and-ride. Folks, these are parkin’ places, not sparkin’ spaces.

Also at the park-and-ride, we found a major mess.

Someone cleaned out their vehicle. Nails, paint cans and other random trash. At this point, we were overloaded and we had been asked by the metro guy to not pick up trash in the parking lot since he was concerned about keeping his job. We left it for the professionals.

More signs of drug use.

A needle tossed by the side of the road on Juanita-Woodinville Way and a plastic straw with a melted tip. Never mind the dope, inhaling fumes from burning plastic is not good for you either.

Someone planted a bunch of signs around the freeway ramps and down Juanita-Woodinville Way.

We really wish they had not done that and let the secret out. This is how we got our Picasso. Can anybody spell S-C-A-M! From this corner, we could see eight of these signs. On the rest of our walk, we counted a total of 19 signs for the auction the next day. Similar signs are used across the country, for example,

There is a discussion about these on reddit.com. A couple of comments explain the scam:

“They rent places like hotel conference rooms, ballrooms, etc. and then advertise the auction using these signs and an ad in the paper. They have items on display you can bid on, you pay to bid or pay to participate in the event all together – but nobody actually walks away with the Rolls or the Picasso, or any of the really valuable stuff – the reserves on those items are either never met or they’re “won” by someone they’ve arranged to bid, an actor or accomplice. People might walk out with mystery boxes or some overpriced junk, but none of the good valuable shit they move from city to city (which is probably not real anyway.)”

and,

“There won’t be any actual Picasso’s, even just for display. If there is a Rolls, it’s probably 39 years old and the organizers “prized possession”.

It is most likely a junk action. Lots of counterfeit goods, fake jewelry, etc. They roll into town, unload a bunch of crap to senseless people who think they are buying real stuff, shill the bids up, and roll out. Then nobody can come back and bitch when they find out that Louis Vuitton bag is a knockoff, or that Rolex is trash.”

Remember to old adage, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.