A Bad Omen

Monday, July 8^th, 2024 – Safeway

Today is supposed to be the peak of our minor heatwave at 92°F (33.3°C). While we started our walk, the temperature was 60°F and rose to 68°F by the end. Fortunately, we were dressed down to a single short-sleeve shirt and jeans. We would like to wear shorts, but the frequent Blackberry bush thorns would be a problem. We encountered no roadkill but collected some money.

We picked up thirteen cents at the drive-through and another quarter on NE 145^th St. Thirty-eight cents is a good start to the week. We’ll see if we can keep it up.

We also picked up a nice tool.

A drill socket and it was hardly run over at all. It will be a nice addition to our drill bit collection.

Someone lost their begging sign.

Don’t give her a dime. She’s definitely a deadbeat. But then, somebody did.

The highlight of our walk occurred when we were travelling back past Safeway and heard a vehicle honk. We turned to see a guy in a pickup truck pointing something at us.

We started to duck when we saw it was a gift card. He said, “For what you do.” We thanked him and said we appreciated it.

As we have said in the past, some folks offer to give us money and we always refuse. However, when someone thinks ahead and takes the time to purchase a gift card, we accept it. Unfortunately, we have not kept track of the gifts we received, but it includes several gift cards, mostly Starbucks, our vests, rubber gloves, coffee, pickers, visibility lights, and a gift bag from the Metro bus drivers that included hats, flashlights, masks and other items. We deeply appreciate it all because it shows their appreciation for what we do. What they don’t realize is we are out here selfishly for our exercise. Just in case, we’ll hang onto the begging sign.

Tuesday, July 9^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

This morning was even warmer starting at 68°F (20.0°C) which is quite warm at 4:30 in the morning. We survived, but we were overheating by the time we got home. We removed a bird from the road, the first Flicker we have found. But we found more money.

A penny on the freeway overpass, a dime and a penny in the gutter near the freeway, and another nickel on the freeway off-ramp. Seventeen cents, not as good as yesterday, but not bad.

And we did find a tool.

This is a telescoping boat hook, forty-five dollars on Amazon. Of course, we only found half of it, so we’ll take twenty bucks for it since it’s used. The earliest bidder wins.

We found another rubber duck.

We keep finding these. One of these days, we need to get our ducks in a row and have a group picture. Stay tuned.

At the top of the Tolt Pipeline, we found another condom.

And near the condom was a tennis shoe.

It was a Converse tennis shoe that was a damaged key chain, twenty-three bucks on Amazon. It must have been a wild time on the hill last night.

This is a puzzle.

We found a disc from Shadow Ridge golf course in Palm Desert, California. You might think it’s a ball marker, but it’s an inch-and-a-half in diameter and about an eighth of an inch thick. We searched, but we could not find any sign of it on the Internet. We suppose you could throw it at your opponent when he is ready to swing, but that goes against the etiquette of golf, but we do know of some who have tossed their club at trees.

Outside the KinderCare, we found a juice bottle.

So, a pack of twelve of these is forty-six bucks on Amazon. That works out to $3.83 per bottle. Typical fruit juice is $0.09 to $0.13 per fluid ounce on the Internet including the packaging costs. So, if we consider thirteen cents per ounce as the price of the juice ignoring the packaging, that means the cost of the juice in this bottle is 12 x 0.13 = $1.69 per serving and the cost of the bottle is at minimum, $3.83 – $1.69 = $2.14. So the bottle costs more than the juice.

Being old parents and grandparents, we understand buying these, but we wouldn’t buy them for ourselves.

Wednesday, July 10^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100^th Ave NE

This morning was yet another warm morning. We came across five roadkill, two rats, two crows, and this.

We don’t normally show gruesome pictures of roadkill, but we thought this run over baseball would be okay. No, we won’t count it as an official roadkill.

We also found money. The drive-through and the food truck both came up empty, but in the gutter on Juanita-Woodinville Way we found a quarter.

We also picked up a couple of tools.

A bungee cord in reasonable shape and a multifunction screwdriver with only one bit, and the bit was rusted in, so it was only a single-function screwdriver. Or in other words, a rusty screwdriver. The bungee cord went into our bungee cord collection and the screwdriver got recycled. But they still count as two tools.

At KinderCare today, we tossed back several toys including a baby and a lunch box.

The baby had tattoos on its head indicating a stint in the KinderCare prison. The lunch box had lost a few of its contents including half a hard-boiled egg, a strawberry, a sandwich and a couple of other items. We placed all the items back in the box and dropped it over the fence where it promptly popped open spilling all the contents. They didn’t look very appetizing anyway.

On Juanita-Woodinville Way, there is a bridge a few blocks from Safeway. We cross three times a week and on one end of the bridge there is a trail that leads down to the creek and to other areas we have not explored. We normally walk about fifty feet down the trail and often find trash that someone has left. For the past several weeks, we have sporadically found two or three empty cans of Budweiser Chelada behind a tree.

We may set up a camera here to see who is doing the littering. Or perhaps this is the Safeway break room?

Thursday, July 11^th, 2024 – 160^th to 124^th Street

Today was about five degrees cooler than yesterday making it more comfortable. We removed two roadkill, a rat and a bird, and we kept our money finding streak alive.

Barely. We found a single penny on 116^th Ave NE, along with another urine bottle.

Next time, just leave another penny instead of a urine bottle. We found some tools, though.

A Craftsman screwdriver and only part of a Milwaukee tool, but the model number was on it.

It was a utility knife. We presented this evidence to the TrashWalking judges, but they rejected it, and only allowed the screwdriver. It was worth a try.

In a parking lot, we picked up an unopened can of water.

The label indicates the ingredients as,

• Carbonated Filtered Water
• Citric Acid
• Natural Flavors
• Sucralose (sweetener)
• Taurine
• Guarana Extract (seed)
• Caffeine
• Glucuronolactone
• Ginger Extract (root)
• Green Tea Leaf Extract (with EGCG)
• Vitamin C (ascorbic acid)
• Vitamin B (B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B12)
• Chromium Chloride

Sounds okay, except for the chromium chloride. We saw the movie Erin Brockovich about chromium.

Friday, July 12^th, 2024 – 100^th Ave NE

The weather was near perfect today. We removed another roadkill rat and bird. This is weird. In the past, rabbits have been the leading roadkill. However, lately it is birds and rats we are finding. Even the crows have outdone the rabbits as roadkill. We are thinking they may have evolved into, “Homo Rabbitus,” or something.

We also found money.

Twelve cents at the drive-through, a dime on the curb at 100th & 145th, a penny on Juanita-Woodinville Way.” That was nice, but then we got this.

Whoa! Make our year. THAT will make a blip in our hourly wage, perhaps in the thousandths of a dollar decimal place.

We picked up a lot of trash along the construction on 100^th Ave NE, especially half-empty water bottles. Fortunately, there were few alcoholic beverage cans, because there is a lot of heavy machinery here and you know what they say about drugs and operating heavy equipment. Light machinery, like cars, is okay.

We picked up a tool to toss a dog ball.

We were able to outrun the dog owner, and we found the tool a good home with a friend who happened to drive by taking his dogs for a walk.

We are not going to keep taking photos of these, but we wanted to show that these are not one-off events.

More Chelada cans. Only $3.50 for a 25oz can at Safeway. It’s got Bud Light and Clamato. What’s Clamato? The contents are stated as,

Water, Tomato Concentrate, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Monosodium Glutamate, Salt, Citric Acid, Spices, Onion and Garlic Powder, Ascorbic Acid (To Maintain Color), Dried Clam Broth, Vinegar, Natural Flavors, Red 40, Red Chili Pepper. Contains Mollusks and their derivatives, Corn and its derivates.

Pretty standard stuff. Wait. What are derivatives of Mollusks? Some things better left unknown.

Someone tossed out a baby’s doll.

We don’t know what it is either.

Saturday, July 13^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

This morning was another comfortable walk. We removed a rabbit and another crow, the third this week. It may be a bad omen, at least for the crows. Also, we got nickel-pennied with the money.

Three nickels and two pennies, all in separate locations along our walk. And we found a nice tool.

A very nice pair of pliers.

We found two sets of keys, one under the freeway and the other along Woodinville Drive.

The one on the left has a tag with some smeared writing, but the only word we can make out is “Bothell.” Who knows, they could be the keys to the city. The other set looks more important. The big key is a vehicle key with no branding, and the smaller key has two numbers stamped on it, but neither has any information about whose they are.

We picked up a ribbon that could be a lost decoration from the Independance Day celebrations.

It has a U.S. Army Parachute badge that is given for being trained to jump from aircraft and perform military parachuting. We have no idea whether this one is real or not, but given the ribbon has a specific badge on it, it’s probably not a general decoration.

On the freeway on-ramp, we picked up a bag.

The bag was difficult to open on the on-ramp, but when we got it home we discovered it was a rechargeable, electric air compressor to inflate tires, basketballs, etc. It’s available on Amazon for forty-three dollars and the reviews are mostly favorable. At almost exactly one pound, it’s a bit heavy to carry on a bicycle, but carrying it in your car for emergency basketball games wouldn’t be bad.

Uh oh. Mr. Brickman got hit by a bus at the park-and-ride.

With that, we wrap up another TrashWalking week. Our take,

• $21.21.  A great week thanks to the $20 bill.
• 11 roadkill including three crows.
• 9 Mike’s Hard Lemonade cans.
• 6 Tools.
• 4 Balls.
• 2 Sets of keys.
• 2 Condoms, used.
• 1 Twenty-five-dollar Starbucks gift card.
• 1 Begging sign.
• 1 Urine bottle.
• 1 Parachute badge.
• 1 Rubber ducky.
• 1 Tiny sneaker.
• 1 Puzzling disc.
• 1 Tattooed baby.
• 1 Smashed Brickman.

Have a great week and remember, don’t drink Bud Light Chelada if you are allergic to Mollusk derivatives.