Going Postal

Monday, March 4^th, 2024 – Safeway

This morning was warm with a little wind. Janet hopefully checked out her favorite drive-thru to no avail. However, we did find two tools, kind of.

A wimpy give-away flashlight and a bungee cord. The flashlight is from Nationwide Children’s Hospital. However, in this case, “Nationwide” appears to be located in Ohio.

At the Tolt Pipeline, a lost dog poop bag.

Okay, as we have seen in the recent past, these could be human poop bags, but we haven’t seen many people walking without a dog with one of these hanging from their belt. We’re not saying it doesn’t happen, it’s just not something we would recommend for a job interview or a first date.

We found a full bag.

Fortunately, it was full of food trash and not other stuff.

At the intersection of Juanita-Woodinville Way and 100^th Ave NE, we found an old sign.

Unfortunately, both Google Lens and ChatGPT couldn’t find anything. So, we’ll take a shot. It was the roll-out of a new General Motors SUV model called the “Today Candy” made of sugar and they made the mistake of introducing it in the Pacific Northwest where it dissolved in the rain. Just a guess.

Okay, druggies may not be the sharpest tool in box,

but a dope cooking dope with a plastic spoon is not a great idea.

Tuesday, March 5^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Today was another chilly day requiring heated gloves. We found no money and no roadkill, but we did find a tool.

A hammer drill bit, about ten bucks on Amazon. Unfortunately, we don’t have a hammer drill that uses these bits. So, if you are interested, we’ll let it go for five bucks, not including shipping, handling, taxes and any other fees we can think of. Let us know.

We also found a gift card.

We find a lot of gift cards, mostly empty. We logged onto the Amazon site to check the balance and we got a fifty-dollar credit. By the TrashWalking judge rulings, this can’t be counted as a money find, but we’ll gladly accept a credit to our Amazon account.

Wednesday, March 6^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

This was another heated-glove morning and we found very little of interest. No money, no balls, no Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans, only random trash. Except for this new illegal dumping.

This is disappointing. A good citizen would put it on the curb with a “free” sign on it.

Let’s check what has accumulated in Chuck’s vest pocket.

Starting on the left, a whole herd of credit cards. Credit cards break up when they are run over, so none of these appear to be purposely cut up. We remember the name on the grey Quick Silver on top. Quick silver is a nickname for mercury metal which is very hard to hold onto. So, the guy needs to get a different card, so he doesn’t lose it. Again.

The “Odd Water” sticker in the center is a reference to Elysian Odd Water nonalcoholic beer. The last card is another Magic game card. The yellow tag on the bottom is a survey marker marked “Do Not Remove,” so obviously it got removed. No, not by us.

A complete pair of glasses with a broken lens, but we found another lens for it. Some assembly required. A package containing two empty marijuana vaping cartridges. The labelling on the package states they were 92.5% THC, the part that intoxicates, and 0.59% CBD, the part that has health benefits. So, we know what this individual was after. It doesn’t mention what the other 7% is. An unopened condom.

Finally, a fingernail, another hair band, a toy slipper and ice cream bar, and a bag of buttons. They came with a new Pendelton shirt to replace any that get lost. But they got lost.

Thursday, March 7^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

This morning was again clear and cold, so we were wearing our heated gloves again. They are not too bad except it makes picking up coins difficult. And we did find some this morning, the first of the week.

We found a quarter in the gutter near a services station driveway and another quarter and a nickel close to each other about a half mile away.

We also found a tool.

Technically it is a Craftsman hammer holder that fits on a belt. They don’t make it anymore and it’s been run over, but we are still counting it as a tool.

On the side of the street, we found what looked to be a tee shirt in a plastic bag.

But when we opened it up, it was a lady’s top by Sofia Jeans. This brand is sold at Walmart, but if you like it, you will be able to purchase it at Goodwill in a week or two.

On the street that parallels the freeway offramp we picked up a mess.

A bunch of beer and wine cans, five empty Camels Cigarette packs and the butts to go with them.

Say “Cheese!”

We found a total of three unopened packs of cheese in grass next to NE 160^th St. The only markings were “Use Thru Jul 08 24MT5 08 38.” This was near a school, so it may be that t delivery truck lost part of its load. By the way, it was sliced. So, yes, someone cut the cheese.

We found a spherical stainless-steel spring.

It looked vaguely familiar, but Google Lens found it immediately. It’s called a shaker ball, whisk ball, and blender ball among other things and is used to help mix powders to a liquid in bottles. We don’t often mix things in bottles, but we may keep it just in case we want to mix things up a bit.

In the park-and-ride, we found a pair of handcuffs. No, nothing kinky.

They are called handcuffs or leashes and are used to tether gloves like ski gloves to your wrist so you can easily remove bulky gloves to take a photo or something. Wait, these would be great for our heated gloves.

Friday, March 8^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

The temperature this morning reached 37°F (2.8°C) which Chuck deemed unnecessary for heated gloves. But Janet demanded them, and Chuck, fearing the “I told you so,” wore them also. At the end of our walk, Janet said that she was warm during the entire walk including her hands. Chuck remained silent.

We, or rather Janet, found more money today.

Two cents at the service station and the rest, one quarter and seven cents at her favorite drive thru. A total of thirty-four cents. Okay, the week’s looking up.

We also found more tools.

Another pair of safety glasses and a knife. Google thinks it might be a Takamura Migaki Japanese Santoku knife, but we’re pretty sure it’s a run-over putty knife. But if you are willing to pay $150 for it, let’s talk.

We found some car parts today.

At the intersection of 112th Ave NE and Juanita-Woodinville Way, someone found a minor accident and lost their license plate. According to the Internet it belongs to a 2015 Chevrolet Cruze. Then on 100^th Ave NE, someone lost a mirror where the roadwork is underway. Last week we noticed that they had separated lanes and the vehicles needed to change lanes in the middle of the construction. The traffic lanes were not well marked and twice we saw cars meeting on the same lane. Evidently someone complained because the lanes were straight, well-marked and lit up like a Christmas tree.

On NE 145th St., another condom.

Looks painful.

On Simonds Road, someone dumped a three-wheeled “Wiggle” scooter.

This one is a Trikke T8 model and this video shows how to ride it.

The company appears to only make pricy electric models now.

They also have models designed for police.

It might be effective but looks pretty silly if you ask us.

Saturday, March 9^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Finally, some decent weather for a change. The temperature was 41°F (5.0°C) and cloudy. It did rain, but just as we arrived home. And we found more money.

Not much money, only a tarnished penny. But we found another tool.

Not much of a tool, only another small socket for our socket jar.

While we were walking down Riverside Drive toward Bothell, a large coyote crossed in front of us.

This video is very grainy and in a slight slow motion, but you can see how large the coyote is.

We picked up two articles of clothing.

In the Bothell parking lot, we picked up an apron near the rear entrance of a restaurant. We hung it on the door handle. Later, on Riverside drive, we picked up a lost baby’s hat that will end up at Goodwill.

Another wheel cover.

A Buick hub cover in good condition. We’ll probably recycle it. Goodwill won’t take them, and we don’t have room to store all that we find.

We picked up some one-hundred-dollar bills.

We know it can be difficult to tell, but we’re pretty sure these are fake. Too bad, we picked up a lot of them. They were probably dumped by the counterfeiter after trying to pass them at a couple of stores and the clerks just laughed.

Someone’s got some splainin’ to do.

Side note: We tried to find a video clip of Ricky saying that line to Lucy on the “I Love Lucy” show. Evidently that line was never used on the show.

A lost official Postal Service badge.

We thought we should keep it in case we ever want to go postal, but we put it in our outgoing mailbox slot. That should work, it worked for hotel room keys when they still used keys.

Dope at the park-and-ride. Was there a vaping taste test?

And a broken bong.

Marijuana was illegal when we started our TrashWalking career, and we found several bongs in good condition, probably due to folks tossing them then thinking they were going to get caught. Now that it’s legal, we only find broken ones.

Another condom by the metered freeway onramp. First, we found the wrapper then about a hundred feet further on, we found the condom.

Now that is multitasking.

That wraps up our TrashWalking week. Our take this week:

• 90 Cents.
• 25 Mikes Hard Lemonade cans.
• 7 Balls including a mixing ball.
• 7 Tools, none particularly good.
• 4 Items of dope paraphernalia including a burned plastic spoon.
• 3 Items of apparel.
• 3 Condoms, 2 used.
• 3 Blocks of cheese.
• 1 Fifty-dollar Amazon gift card.
• 1 Wiggle scooter.
• 1 Postal service ID tag.
• 1 Odd Water sticker.
• 1 Pair of handcuffs.
• 0 Roadkill for the second straight week in a row.

Have a great week and remember whatever you do always be prepared to splain yourself.