Shopping Bag Failure

Monday, June 24^th, 2024 – Safeway

We are off and running on a new TrashWalking week. Okay, more like walking, but we are rearing to go. Okay, that may be overstating it. Let’s just say we’re mostly awake and leave it at that. Today we removed a roadkill squirrel and found some money.

A dime at the bus stop across from Safeway and a beat-up nickel about a block and a half farther up the street. Not a bad start to the week for us. Not so much for the squirrel, though.

We also found a couple of tools.

The first was a miniature screwdriver bit labeled CR-V2 meaning it is made from chromium-vanadium steel. It is from a set and the ‘2’ means it is the second smallest. It is only about an inch long, so we are surprised we saw it in the gutter. But yes, we were keeping an eye out for money. The other tool was a telescoping pocket magnet for rescuing dropped objects. It had been run over and was just a pocket magnet, without the telescoping. When we got it home, we used a vice to unflatten it enough to return it’s telescoping ability, kind of.

Near Safeway, we found a small carrying case for a women.

It was empty and looked like it had never been used except an internal zipper pull was missing and the “Steve Madden” emblem was broken so it only said “_Madden.” Chuck gets confused, again. We found one of these before without the strap and Chuck called it a wallet. Janet said it was a clutch. But someone else said, no, it was a wallet because it didn’t have a strap. But now, we are finding that a wallet with a strap is called a wristlet and without a strap is called a clutch. We decided to ask ChatGPT what kinds of women’s purses there were. It produced fifteen different terms including a Saddle Bag, which had nothing to do with horses, by the way, and none mentioned a wallet or clutch. We asked it about the missing clutch, and it came up with six more categories of clutch. Confused? So is Chuck. You’re welcome.

Tuesday, June 25^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

We had another pleasant morning walk. We removed a small bird from the road, and almost saw a rabbit meet its demise, but it was slightly faster than the car. We also found more money.

A shiny penny on the freeway overpass, a very worn nickel stuck in the tar on the freeway onramp and another penny in the gutter of Juanita-Woodinville Way. This is a good start to the week so far.

At the freeway offramp we found some trash.

There is often a guy playing a guitar here looking for handouts, but he keeps the area clean. This looked more like someone just tossed a bunch of stuff. There was a half-full, large water bottle, and a couple more unopened bottles. Also some unopened yogurts and a nearly full box of GoGo SqueeZ Fruit-on-the-Go packets. We emptied the water bottles and got rid of all but the GoGo SqueeZ packets which we sent to a local food bank. Also, there was an inflated and tied rubber glove. We have no idea what that was for.

On the sidewalk on Brickyard Road, we picked up a single slipper.

Yes, it appears some lady is now hopping around on one bunny slipper.

Wednesday, June 26^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

It was a bit cooler today, but still comfortable. We removed another roadkill bird but found a little money.

Very little money. Two pennies at Janet’s drive-thru and another penny near the new food truck.

We found what looks to be a toy wiener.

No comment.

We find a lot of condoms, mostly the Trojan brand. Today we picked up a discarded box for a Trojan personal lubricant, the first one we’ve seen.

Motion-Activated INTENSIFIER. What kind of motion are we talking about? Is it dangerous to carry or what?

[WARNING: Rant follows.]

<RANT> When we first started our walks, we used bags we received for shopping at grocery stores and bags we picked up to collect trash. These were mostly economically thin and didn’t last long, either for carrying trash or for surviving on the streets. We even asked our friends to save bags for us to use because we were running out.

Then Washington State passed a law requiring stores to provide only heavier, reusable bags and charge eight cents to the customer for them. The result is we seldom find the thin bags, but find plenty of the heavier bags which last longer.

We each carry two bags, one for trash and one for recycling. The heavier bags last us at least two months before they are retired, and we still use the few thin bags we find to bag up and dump our trash in local dumpsters. So, from our perspective, the result of the Washington law is that consumers are still tossing the bags because, guess what? Eight cents per bag is nothing compared to the current price of groceries. And we are finding more bags because they are more durable than the thin ones. That is fine on our routes because we keep them clean. Although we walk about thirty-five miles per week, the area we cover is less than one square mile out of Washington’s 71,000 square miles.

Today, we packed up some of the bags to recycle.

Four of the bags are filled with twenty to twenty-five Safeway bags. The other bag is filled with other random bags. And we still have about half this amount in reserve. So, our message to the Washington Congress: “Please think your actions through.” </RANT>

As we passed the KinderCare, Janet found another ball outside the fence and tossed it back.

At least she did on the second try. She still throws like a girl.

Thursday, June 27^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

We had a slight mist today, but not enough to suit up in our rain gear. That would be very uncomfortable given the temperature in the mid-fifties. We didn’t find any roadkill but did find more money.

A dime in a parking lot keeping our streak this week alive.

We did find another tool.

A handsaw for trimming small limbs. When we arrived home, we found we had another identical to another we purchased. Now we can play Edward Scissorhands.

We came upon the site of a shatter-scatter accident. and spent a few minutes picking up the shattered pieces.

There was no license plate left at the scene, so we can’t determine the make of the car, but we have our suspicions.

We picked up an empty pizza box with the statement that This pizza box dreams to become another pizza box.

It had two simple steps 1. Pick it up and, 2. Put it in the bin. This idiot failed the first step. He read it and didn’t know who “Ben” was in the second step. These are the guys that the ancient societies sent out of the village with some bacon to feed the wolves.

Janet and Chuck have an understanding. Any money we find on our walks goes into our TrashWalking tip jar. Any Janet finds on shopping trips, and such goes into her personal piggy bank. After our walks, she keeps showing Chuck the money she finds while running errands.

Her income seems to be growing faster than our income.

Friday, June 28^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

The weather is taking yet another run at being Summer. There was no rain today and they are claiming the low seventies this afternoon. We’ll see. We removed a roadkill squirrel from the street and found money to keep our streak going.

But barely, by two cents.

On Fridays, we walk along the construction on 100^th Ave NE. We watched the construction with interest and watched while they built a very sturdy timber retaining wall. On the outside of the wall black rectangles with short black pipes at the bottom were attached. We didn’t know the purpose of these. This morning there happened to be a workman walking parallel to us and we asked him what the purpose was.

He went into some detail explaining that the timbers were the back of a retaining wall and eventually the cement retaining wall would be poured. The black panels are designed to drain any water seepage into a drainpipe that will be added. He said that he was just a carpenter and didn’t know the details. We would say he was a knowledgeable carpenter.

In the driveway out of Safeway, we found a pair of women’s underwear.

Then, at the bottom of the Tolt Pipeline trail, a condom.

So, a couple met in Safeway, hit it off in a big way, and headed to the Tolt Pipeline shedding clothing along the way. That’s our story and we’re sticking with it. At least they used the “safe way”.

Saturday, June 29^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Today was about picking up trash, roadkill, and money. Bothell has been mowing weeds this week uncovering a lot of trash. We came home with fifty-one pop tabs meaning we picked up over fifty-one cans. This is not a record, but it’s a lot. We removed three roadkill from the road, a rat, a small bird, and a rabbit, and we found money.

In order, we picked up two dimes in the Bothell parking lot, a dime and a quarter along Riverside Drive, a dollar on Woodinville Drive, another dime on Brickyard Road, a nickel, we think on Juanita-Woodinville Way and another dime in the park-and-ride. That’s called spreading the wealth.

We also found a tool.

A shiny, 1o-mm combination wrench.

Last week, we spoke about the twice-destroyed storm drain cover. Today, we found that they had replaced the cover again.

But they added three reflective stakes in front of it. We don’t think these will stop a car, though.

As we approached the bridge into Bothell, we came across a sleeping bag with food in it.

A lot of food.

There were Lunchables, snacks, several packages of turkey hotdogs, bottles of milk, etc. Most of it required refrigeration, so the whole lot is spoiled and headed for the garbage bin. We’ll send the sleeping bag to Goodwill.

Great. Just after the old sofas were removed from the front of the apartments on Woodinville Drive, someone dumped an old air conditioner.

We’ll see how long it’ll sit there.

We picked up another animal.

It had been gutted. And no, we did not count it as roadkill.

Another condom at the bottom of the Tolt Pipeline trail.

No sign of lady’s underwear, though.

Another lost/tossed music CD, but we didn’t attempt to play it.

We can just make out the “The Party Mix.” It looks like the party’s over.

With that, we close another week of TrashWalking. Our take this week,

• $2.17.  We have not seen a week this good since December of 2023.
• 8 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans.
• 7 roadkill
• 4 Tools, including a duplicate saw.
• 2 Articles of clothing.  A bunny slipper and a pair of undies.
• 2 Condoms, used.
• 1 Purse
• 1 Wiener
• 1 Motion-activated intensifier.
• 1 Dreaming pizza box.
• 1 Explanatory carpenter.
• 1 Sleeping bag full of unopened, spoiled food.

Have a great week and remember to reuse your reusable shopping bags.