Going Postal

Week of October 31^st, 2022

We are back from Italy and back to our walking schedule and our littering friends did not disappoint. We found an extra helping of trash on each of our routes.

Down the hill, we found three McDonalds trash bags and a neatly-wrapped bag of empty water bottles. Notice the McDonalds french fries. They are so good when they are warm, but when cold, not even the critters will eat them.

Even more on the freeway ramps.

If we wanted to deal with this kind of mess, we would go into Seattle.

Okay, at least someone was trying to clean up.

Obviously trying to make a clean sweep of things.

We found some money this week, though not much.

A penny at the Sammamish River Trail, a quarter on Brickyard Road, another penny at a bus stop and the Dairy Queen came through with two pennies and a nickel. A total of thirty-four cents.

We also found some tools.

A serviceable pair of side cutters, a small utility knife, five bucks from Harbor Freight, and staple gun that had been run over and was no longer a staple for trading. Another bungee cord in fine condition, a socket for locking lug nuts which as we have discussed are not really locking. Finally, an old bar clamp. Its owner had marked it with the initials MS. Or SW depending on how you looked at it.

On the freeway onramp, we found what looks to be a page out of a high school yearbook.

Except these do not look like high school students. Perhaps a book of Washington State’s serial killers, or worse, lawyers.

This was sad. In the middle of Juanita-Woodinville Way, an owl had been stuck and killed by a vehicle.

While we were waiting for traffic to clear so we could retrieve the owl, a bus arrived and stopped to give us a ride. We explained that we were only waiting for an owl, but the bus driver was not amused and continued on his way.

We pulled the owl to the side of the road and covered it with some branches and twigs. It was a beautiful bird. This is only the second roadkill owl we have removed in our seven-and-a-half years of TrashWalking.

At the top of the Tolt pipeline trail, someone left a pair of Versa Gripps used to help in lifting heavy items.

Okay, we’ve found many things at the tolt pipeline related to various activities including general littering, drugs and sexual activities. You pick the activity they are related to. We abstain.

We picked up a lot of condoms this week.

They were found at various secluded locations except for the two found together in a busy parking lot. Guess some folks are busier than others.

So, we found a set of keys that are part of a KeyPer System that controls the checkout and tracking of company keys.

It didn’t help in this case.

A downed sharp-turn sign.

Normally, we find these when they have been hit by a car. Sometimes, when something gets old, it just falls over. Trust us, it happens.

At the park-and-ride, a home-made bong.

The guy used a really long straw. Or maybe it was the last one. He certainly didn’t pick the short one. Too bad there wasn’t a camel around, or we could keep this line of puns going.

After Halloween, we normally find candy wrappers. This year, it was parts of costumes.

A bag for a commando costume. We would give him less than five seconds against Chuck Norris. A fake captain’s hat and a fake mustache mask. Even if someone was wearing all three items, Norris could take him.

Besides the costumes, we did find some real clothing.

A pair of women’s pants and a jacket near the Tolt Pipeline and a single sneaker near Safeway. A tee-shirt from Davis Development Company in Rancho Cucamonga, California. It is unknown whether they are doing a project in the area, but oddly, we picked up a pair of matching underwear on the freeway onramp. They were in the gutter near the bus stop and had obviously been run over a few times. We deposited them into the bus stop trash can.

Hey, a visit from some old friends, the McLitterers.

The McLitterers always leave two clean platters, and two McCafe teacups. Also, plastic utensils, two syrups and four butters, all unopened. They used to wrap things up in the white McDonalds plastic bags, but times have changed, and McDonalds does not seem to give them out anymore. We have lost count of how many McLitterer messes we have picked up, but it is well over fifty.

Along Simonds Road, we picked up three bags with uneaten sandwiches in each of them.

Not a good review for Jersey Mikes Sub Shop.

So, when we returned from Italy, we found a pile of poop in our driveway. After some Internet research, we determined it was probably from a coyote. We removed and tossed it into some bushes. The very next day, there was a second pile.

Okay, this is poop, but we are showing it for purely scientific purposes. Really. We removed the second pile and so far, no new deposits have been made.

We found two cans of Bud Light.

The first one was full but had a pinhole in it and was leaking. The second was intact and we carried it home. We may have a neighbor who wants it.

Someone else was thirsty but they didn’t leave any full ones for us.

These are all 14Hands wine bottles and cans near the freeway. And yes, some condoms were also involved.

And if you ever find these,

We wouldn’t recommend drinking them.

A boat in a no parking zone.

Well, it didn’t say “No Mooring.”

Stolen mail.

Over a two-day period this week, we found four sets of stolen mail that had been tossed. We took the first batch to the police station. The officer took it and said he would look through it, but it would end up at the post office. When we took the second batch to the station, a different officer told us we should take it to the post office instead. There must not have been anything interesting in the first batch.

We are always picking up pieces of plastic left over from a fender bender, but this week we found several car parts.

We can see losing a license plate or a fuel cap and not noticing it. But the whole grill?

Let’s see what accumulated in Chuck’s vest pocket.

The two items on the upper-right were found in Cinque Terre Italy on our hike. One is a small chrome cone and the other a disc with Health Tech on it. We don’t know what either one was for. Then a single Bluetooth ear bud, great if you only want to listen in monaural. A rare blue diamond that we have not had a chance to get evaluated, but we we’ll probably be rich. A small children’s bible story book. We could be wrong, but we do not recall squirrels, butterflies and rabbits being involved.

A baby’s lion toy to hang from its crib to terrify the child. Olaf the snowman’s head without a body and a snowman body without a head. Further kiddy terror. A snoopy sticker, guaranteed to not terrify a kid. Two credit cards that we shredded and a McDonalds Arches gift card with three dollars and forty-one cents on it. Great, we can get an Egg McMuffin without coffee.

Someone lost a pair of Bluetooth ear protectors.

Fifty bucks on Amazon. “3M WorkTunes Connect Hearing Protector with Bluetooth Technology, 24 dB NRR, Ear protection for Mowing, Snowblowing, Construction, Work Shops.” They appear to be working, but we don’t have a lawn and don’t have a snowblower, so we will need to wait for our next construction project to check them out.

That wraps up another week of TrashWalking. Our take this week:

• 34 Cents.
• 17 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans.
• 4 Balls.
• 4 Roadkill including one owl.
• 4 Batches of stolen mail.
• 3 Jersey Mikes Subs.
• 2 Piles of coyote scat in our driveway.
• 1 Unamused bus driver.

Have a great week and remember to watch your step around coyotes.