Check Your Tabasco Sauce

Monday, April 15^th, 2024 – Safeway

Happy Tax Day! Yeah, just don’t shoot the messenger. This morning was not taxing at all. It started out warm and dry with a slight mist starting about halfway through, but nothing serious.

Given that it was Tax Day, we didn’t expect anything good, and we got it.

A urine bottle.

We found a glass.

It was from IKEA, but we didn’t find any assembly instructions.

At the 7Eleven, there was an array of beverage trucks.

We didn’t check inside, but we imagined the Cola Wars were starting again.

On Norway Hill, we found an ancient Viking relic, another sign that the Vikings visited Norway Hill.

We’ve contacted the University of Washington to further investigate.

We also saw this guy staring at us.

He was thinking, “Look at those old goats.”

In a discarded bag of trash was a half-full tube of candy.

On the back were the legal notices.

It lists all the ingredients, instructions for use, trademarks, etc. Wait, what? Contains a bioengineered food ingredient?

Tuesday, April 16^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Well, back to normal. The temperature was back in the thirties, we had a slight mist, and we found a bunch of stuff. We found two roadkill, a small mouse, and two rabbits. Actually, there were two partial rabbits, so we’ll count it as one rabbit. We also found some money.

At the park-and-ride, we picked up a quarter, a dime and four pennies. Thirty-nine cents, we’ll take it.

We also found three tools along the route.

A Torx socket, an Allen wrench and another 10 mm socket. All official tools and the TrashWalking judges didn’t argue, for once.

As we started our walk at the Tolt Pipeline, someone lost a hoodie.

Sunriver Oregon. Sunriver is a resort near Bend Oregon that we visited a few times. In fact, our granddaughter lost her blankie there about ten years ago. We left the hoodie at the pipeline, but if no one retrieves it, we will take it and give it to her as a replacement. Of course, she is fifteen now, so she may not appreciate it.

We picked up a lot of trash that fell or blew off trucks.

On the freeway off-ramp we cleaned up a bag full of trash from a plumbing project including a kitchen sink strainer, old faucet parts and pipe parts. About everything but the kitchen sink. Along Juanita-Woodinville Way, we picked up an empty wood mulch bag about 2 x 3 feet in size that probably blew off a landscaping truck. As we continued our walk, we found three more of these bags. It sure seems like these are being accidentally dropped on purpose to avoid properly disposing of them.

There was another lug bolt on the freeway on-ramp.

It looked to be in very good condition except that the end looked to be sheared off. Not a good sign.

At the park-and-ride, we found a pair of pantyhose.

There was also a condom wrapper, but it’s unknown if they are related. If she’s wearing pantyhose, would the condom be necessary?

We found two packets of blue liquid.

They were in bags that measured the amount of the content. We didn’t know what the liquid was, so we put it in our bag and carried it home for further investigation. When we got home, one of the bags had leaked and the mystery liquid was a radioactive pesticide. No, we’re lying, it was only soap. So, who puts soap in separate graduated bags?

On our way up Norway Hill, we heard a commotion behind us.

We turned around and saw a raccoon racing across the road. On the other side, a second raccoon saw us, panicked, and scampered back up the bank. As we watched them for a while, a third one appeared up the bank. But they out-waited us, and we finally continued our walk.

Someone got a load of smoking mulch.

It was a case of spontaneous combustion, or at least spontaneous smoldering.

We also found a bottle of Simply Cranberry Cocktail.

It was stuffed with cigarette butts and other pieces of trash including a Tullalip Casino gambling card. Now if we only knew who tossed the bottle, we could return it to him.

Wednesday, April 17^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

Today was again cold and dry. We removed a roadkill rat from the street but found no money. However, we did find a tool.

A drill bit socket. Not much, but we appreciate all tool contributions. If you need a receipt, let us know, but we won’t acknowledge a price above fifty dollars.

Two weeks ago on our Wednesday walk, we found two empty cough syrup bottles at the bus stop on 100th Ave NE.

Today we found two more. Okay kids, it may give you a slight buzz, but at least you won’t be coughing.

At another bus stop on Juanita-Woodinville Way, someone lit a fire to keep warm.

We’ve seen this a few times. Someone takes shelter in a bus stop, finds a cardboard box and lights it on fire. It’s a good thing the shelter is fireproof. Notice the scorch marks on the wall.

This happens more often than we would expect.

Just past Safeway on Juanita-Woodinville Way, two unopened food items. First, a box of chocolate followed by a bottle of Tabasco Sauce. The Tabasco Sauce makes sense because if you don’t have chocolate, why would you need Tabasco Sauce? But why toss the chocolate in the first place?

But it doesn’t end there. We have our own bottle of Tabasco sauce, doesn’t everyone? We don’t even remember when we purchased ours, so we got it out to check the best-use-by date.

Our bottle, which is still about a quarter full, is on the left and the new bottle we found is on the right. Our bottle does not even have a best-by date and the “new” bottle has a date of 12/2022, over a year ago. We assumed that the food items were just purchased at Safeway. So, then we checked the use-by date on the chocolate.

Nearly three years ago. Yet another TrashWalking mystery.

We did some research on best-by dates and found that Tabasco started printing the date on the label in 1989. So, our bottle pre-dates that making it at least thirty-five years old. Perhaps we’ll keep the new bottle, it’s only outdated by a year.

Thursday, April 18^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

The cold and dry trend continued this morning and we found money.

Only a penny, and a penny saved is not worth much anymore. Sorry Benjamin.

We also found more tools.

A very rusty screwdriver bit, part of a pair of pliers, and a bungee cord. Okay, we cannot count the piece of plier, but the other two will count.

At the park-and-ride, more people parking and riding.

Again.

In the ditch along Juanita-Woodinville Way, a downed airplane.

A metal die-cast F-14 Tomcat by WowToyz in great condition for having crashed.

We picked up three pieces of plastic along NE 160^th St.

When we got home, we were able to assemble them enough for identification by Google Lens. It’s a Nike Elite Ball Pump worth twenty bucks. Well, maybe not this one since it had been run over and pieces are missing.

Coincidentally, not far away was a Nike Jordan Boys’ Jumpman Hat.

Thirty-two bucks on Amazon. Well, maybe not this one since it had been run over but all the pieces are there.

Friday, April 19^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

The weather is slowly improving, a little warmer and dry. We found no roadkill and found more money.

Twelve cents at Janet’s favorite drive-thru. We are at fifty-two cents so far with another day to go. It would be nice to break a dollar, but we’re not holding our breath.

Simonds Road is a mess. We travel over its 2.6-mile length often and are well-trained as spotting trash. On our Friday walk, we go about a thousand feet up the road, turn around and come down the other side. During the week, we saw some major trash farther up so today we walked an extra five-hundred feet up the hill to retrieve the trash. Unfortunately, there was a lot more hidden trash and we became overloaded and needed to leave some of the trash. In the next weeks, we will again continue up the road until we are able to clean it up. However, there is no way we can clean the entire road, so this will probably be our limit. Our walk today was about six-and-a-half miles which is about our limit hauling trash. Hopefully someone will be shamed into cleaning up the rest of the hill.

This may be a record for us. We picked up eight balls along our walk today. Two baseballs along 112th Ave NE. They are probably from the school, but too far down the street for us to walk back to return them. We will do that later. Then we returned two balls tossed over the fence at the KinderCare. Farther down we picked up two Wiffle balls and tossed them back over a fence. We have returned many wiffle balls over this fence. Then, we found a golf ball then a ball with a seam. We opened it up and found some items.

Inside was a paper purse stuck to the wall and three items that looked like a small pair of sunglasses, a cellphone, and an abnormally large lipstick. Of course, the last item could be something else a woman might carry in her purse. Don’t blame us for your imagination.

A kid’s toy puppy.

We will wash it and put it in the Goodwill pile.

Outside the new Dentist Office near Safeway, a run-over toothbrush.

“Good job. Keep brushing and here’s a toothbrush for you.” Gee thanks, but I use a Sonicare.

Whoever shot this may be a straight arrow, but they are a terrible shot.

This arrow is a bullet point without barbs, so it is mostly used for target practice. Still, finding this on the sidewalk while walking by does not give us a lot of comfort.

At the KinderCare, a Barbie Doll had a bad hair day.

Yes, we tossed her back over the fence.

Saturday, April 20^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

We wrapped up our walking week with a beautiful morning. It’s too bad we didn’t find any money and removed a roadkill rabbit from the street. And, the first thing of note we found certainly did not bode for a good walk.

In the Sammamish River parking lot, someone pulled into the park for a little recreation.

A used condom. At least it wasn’t in the park-and-ride.

We found more clothing today.

A sweatshirt with a Santana Excavating logo. We saw this last week and let it hang on a fence in case the person returned, but it was still there this week. We also retrieved the Sunriver sweatshirt that we left at the Tolt Pipeline on Tuesday. So, two sweatshirts are headed to Goodwill.

This is weird. Under a tree by the Jackson’s station on Brickyard Road, we found men’s underwear.

An unopened 3-Pack plus a fourth pair. None of them appear to have been worn. They will be washed and sent to Goodwill.

Also, under the same tree, an empty can of silly putty.

It’s really Crazy Aaron’s Thinking Putty. Then later, at the park-and-ride, another smaller empty can of it. These are the only Crazy Aaron cans we’ve found in nearly ten years of TrashWalking. A coincidence? We think not.

A 70’s era Norelco Dictaphone.

We have a nine-volt battery but not the mini-cassettes that it uses, so we’re not sure whether it works or not.

At the park-and-ride, some lost keys.

The key ring is from a local Subaru dealership. We will return them to the dealer. They should be able to get the vehicle information from the key.

These guys are not just playing games.

At least not dominoes anymore.

We came across some more food items.

An unopened can of beer to add to the random beverages in our garage fridge. We didn’t check the use-by date. Also, a half-eaten Bison bar.

Bison, Uncured Bacon + Cranberry. It doesn’t look too appetizing. No wonder there’s half left.

We picked up an empty Craven cigarette package.

There was a warning on it in Vietnamese and Google translated it for us. “Smoking claims to a slow and painful death.” The word Craven means coward, but we think that’s a bad name. If someone is willing to smoke these cigarettes with that warning, he’s no coward. Stupid but no coward.

Well, we started the week with a urine bottle, and we ended it with one also.

Then we thought we picked up a second one, but it was a homemade bong, so the liquid is not urine, but water with marijuana residue in it. At least we hope it’s not urine.

With that thought, we wrap up our walking week. Our take,

• 52 Cents
• 13 Balls.
• 8 Items of clothing including four men’s underwear.
• 6 Tools.
• 6  Mikes Hard Lemonade cans.  We missed some because the weeds.
• 5 Food items including a bioengineered ingredient and a bison.
• 4 Roadkill.
• 2 Urine bottles.
• 2 Condoms.
• 1 Viking relic.
• 1 Bus stop fire.
• 1 Downed fighter jet.
• 1 Toothbrush, run-over.
• 1 Bad hair day Barbie.
• 1 Old goat.

Have a great week and remember to check the date of your Tobasco.