Monday, January 8th, 2024 – Safeway
Today it was raining with the temperature dropping to 37°F (2.8°C). The rest of the week is not looking good either, but we’ll see. We did start the week with some money.
Two pennies, not much but it’s our two-cents worth. And speaking of money, all the money we find ends up in our Tip Jar and periodically we empty the jar and stash the money. We counted this year’s found money and tallied the statistics. See the Money Page for the details, but we had a good year. We tallied $248.13 in found money buoyed by the only one-hundred-dollar bill we’ve found.
We always have some monetary wastage.
This is the money that we cannot count. Discounting the third of a dollar, there’s fifty-three cents wasted.
We now have a total of $706.81 since we’ve kept count. That’s a lot, but our hourly wage still sucks.
We picked up some car parts.
Someone ran off the road and lost a wheel cover. It’s in great condition, so if you know someone who owns a Hyundai and is missing a hubcap, let us know. We also found one of those annoying tailpipe sound enhancers. If you know someone who lost one of these, forget it, we’re not giving it back. In fact, we recycled it.
Along NE 145th St we saw a large black bag in the middle of the street.
It turned out to have three balloons in it and we found another three balloons on the side of the road. Then on Norway Hill, we found another bag with another six balloons in it. The balloons were blue and white which are the colors of Bothell High School. “Okay, Jake, your job is to get balloons for the big dance, don’t screw it up again!” “Don’t worry, I got this.”
A full pack of cigarettes and an empty lighter.
Must be a new smoker. “Dang, the lighter’s empty. Guess we need another lighter and pack of cigarettes.” We like that, packs of twenty cigarettes are easier to pick up than individual cigarette butts.
Tuesday, January 9th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride
Today the weather was a bit warmer with no rain, but very breezy with winds between 12 and 36 mph. There were a lot of small branches down on the road, but we did not notice any power outages.
In fact, one of the first things we found was a Columbia-brand windbreaker that the wind blew away.
It’s kind of ironic if you think about it. Do you want to wear something that is always breaking wind?
Well, this is going to be a difficult detour to follow.
The wind may have blown this sign into the bushes. Talk about throwing caution to the winds.
We found two more of these clips, that makes a total of four so far.
They looked like they could be interesting, and we tracked them down using Google Lens. They are “Ergodyne Squids 3400 Glove Clip Holder.“ Although they are called glove holders, they can hold multiple items, like for instance our garbage and recycle bags! We can get very excited about these.
Okay, yes, we might be looking for an endorsement fee. After all, only two cents in two days.
A one-hundred-dollar golf ball.
Okay, it only has a one-hundred-dollar bill printed on it, and the cost is only seventeen dollars, but that’s still a lot for a golf ball. We’ve only played golf a few times, but we couldn’t even afford $17 at the rate we lost golf balls.
Near the end of our walk, another victim of the winds.
Given the green and white colors, we’re sure the winds blew the umbrella in from Saudi Arabia because the colors match their flag.
Okay, maybe not.
Wednesday, January 10th, 2024 – Safeway & 100th Ave NE
The wind has passed, and the temperature remained mild. We found neither money nor roadkill but did find a tool.
The handle is a little beat up, but the blade is in good condition, so as long as you wear gloves while using it, it should be okay.
Someone lost her skirt.
It looked a bit tattered, but it still had a sales tag on it. We found it on the site, Dolls Kill and it’s supposed to look tattered,
like most of the models on the website.
A Boy Scout project for a Christmas tree pickup, January 6th and 7th.
Okay, now how about a sign pickup?
Thursday, January 11th, 2024 – 160th to 124th Street
This morning’s weather was mostly clear and colder at 36°F (2.2°C). We decided not to wear our bulky, heated gloves and went with our normal lighter gloves with rubber gloves over them. That was a mistake and made for an uncomfortable walk and cold fingers.
We did not find much of interest. We did pick up a urine bottle,
if that’s of interest to you.
They say, don’t put all your eggs in one basket,
but we did. The waste basket at the park-and-ride.
Friday, January 12th, 2024 – 100th Ave NE
Winter finally hit this morning. The weather was clear and dry causing the temperature to plummet.
That is way below our official walking temperature of 30°F. So in lieu of a walk, we decided to inventory the contents of Chuck’s vest pocket.
The three cards on the left were all found in a mess in the park-and-ride. The top one is a door key card for the Ocean Shores Resort on the Washington coast and in the middle another key card for a Wyndam Hotel. On the bottom is an employee ID card. By the way, Ms. Thompson, if you are going to clean out your car in the park-and-ride, it’s not a good idea to leave your ID card with the trash.
Back to the top, two pairs of glasses, one for a left-eared person and one for a right-eared person. And only one lens, so for a one-eyed person also.
Three fake fingernails, and three real tickets to Nutcracker ballet. The folks that attended the ballet were patrons of the arts. We could tell because the tickets were artfully strewn across the road. Derek’s dental card and a dodo. At least Google Lens thinks it’s a dodo bird.
The dodo is a bird that inhabited the Mauritius Island in the Indian Ocean. It lived on an island and was flightless. So when humans showed up with nonindigenous animals, the dodo had no other place to go except extinct, which it did in about 1670. So, if there are no photos of the dodo, how did Google know it was a dodo?
A kid’s bracelet, and a bar of hotel soap and an orange bandage, both unopened. A couple of writing implements, and some hair control devices, one with hair still in it and the other with a rose. Then, some toys, a Nerf bullet, a bell and part of a McDonalds Happy Meal toy. After some searching, we found it was Darla’s hair of the McNuggets Buddies.
Whoa! Five-hundred bucks. We’ll put her hair on eBay for only a hundred, and yes, we’ll also add a coupon. Hey, you can ask whatever you want on eBay.
Finally, we found an OTA which isn’t worth much. Now, if we had found an “I” with it, at least we would have had a little something.
The forecast for tomorrow is even colder, 11°F (-11.7°C).
So, we will not be walking again until the temperatures moderate, and we’ll wrap up our TrashWalking week early.
Our take this week is,
• 2 Cents. Not an auspicious start to the year.
• 12 Balloons that missed the dance.
• 10 Mikes Hard Lemonade cans.
• 2 Car parts.
• 1 Tool
• 1 $100 golf ball.
• 1 Tattered skirt for a tattered girl.
• 1 Urine bottle.
• 1 Windbreaker not breaking wind.
• 1 Extinct bird.
• Not one iota.
Have a great week and remember, don’t lick a flagpole.
Trash Walking 