A Murder, Police, and a Good Deed

Monday, October 7^th, 2024 – Safeway

We started out the week with a mild morning, little traffic and no roadkill. All in all, pretty boring. The only bit of excitement we had was while we were about a quarter mile from the 7Eleven, we saw about seven police cruisers speed through the intersection into a residential neighborhood in silent mode with neither lights nor sirens. As we reached the intersection, one of the cruisers came back out, evidently also bored.

We waved good morning to him, but he ignored us. He could have stopped and frisked us or something. We are dangerous looking with our pickers and yellow vests, after all.

The only thing we found out of the ordinary trash was a marijuana tube.

Inside were two marijuana cigarettes. A friend who is much more knowledgeable about such things called them joints. And when they are marijuana cigarette joint butts, they are called roaches. We need to expand our vocabulary. Roaches are the insects that race under the refrigerator when you turn the kitchen lights on in Mississippi. Okay, that was about seventy years ago, so perhaps our vocabulary needs a major update.

That was it for today’s walk. However, last night, we were visiting an establishment across from a massage parlor called the Relaxing Station. They routinely plant signs advertising for their services to the point of being ridiculous with some corners having two or three signs. We generally leave signs alone unless they have fallen and become litter.

Last night, there were several boxes stacked on the sidewalk by the business.

The label on the boxes showed that they contained signs for a $45 per hour full-body massage and there were 200 boxes. We don’t know how many were in each box, but based on the size, we estimate about 50 per box. So, we are looking at about ten-thousand signs. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We may need to declare war on these and temporarily suspend our rules.

Tuesday, October 8^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

We awoke this morning to a very warm temperature of 61°F (16.1°C), and checking our weather app, it suggested that rainy conditions were expected at about 6:00pm this evening. Great, we didn’t wear our rain jackets that would have caused us to overheat. About an hour into our walk, we received a notification that “rain was expected soon.” Sure enough, the rain started a few minutes later.

A narrow band of rain ran over us. We arrived home wet and cold, with the temperature dropping by five degrees. We need a new weather app.

We didn’t find any money or roadkill, but we did find a tool.

A pair of scissors. Okay, they were run over, and they are kids’ scissors. Okay, not a tool, we wouldn’t try to get it past the TrashWalking judges.

Wednesday, October 9^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100th

Today was a bit cooler, and we had no rain, which was much better than yesterday. But not that much better. We didn’t find any money and no roadkill. The first thing out of the ordinary we saw was a windshield sunshade.

Someone was marking the end of summer by tossing it. Oh well, someone can purchase it for a good price at Goodwill.

Discarded food.

The label states that it is “REDUCED” which is code word for “ready to expire.” They took two bites of it and left it for the crows. We tossed it in the garbage. We like crows and wouldn’t wish this on any of them.

Another lost cat sign.

Scrawled across the top was “send photo.” We thought that was odd, but what the heck, we took a selfie. We hope they like it.

Thursday, October 10^th, 2024 – 160th to 124th Street

Well, it isn’t getting more exciting this week. We did remove a small bird from the freeway off-ramp, but that’s about it. Yes, we did pick up some normal trash, talking about a smashed Modelo bottle, several cans and soda cups. But little of interest.

We did find a tool, though. We travel this route only one day a week and two weeks ago we picked up part of a grease gun like this one.

We picked up the main barrel, the large black portion and it was filled with grease. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a picture at the time, because it wasn’t a whole tool. Then last week, we found the main valve part and recognized it as a part of the same tool. Then, today, we found the delivery tube and we took a photo.

So, we will try to take credit for a complete tool even though it took us three walks to gather it. We’ll see if the TrashWalking judges will allow it.

Given that it took us that long to find all the parts of a grease gun, it’s no wonder we can’t find some lousy coins.

Friday, October 11^th, 2024 – 100th Ave NE

This morning was a little cooler and foggy, but comfortable. We removed three roadkill, one rat and two rabbits, but we found the first money of the week. But don’t get too excited.

Two pennies from the drive-through and one on Juanita-Woodinville Way and one on 100^th Ave NE. So, four cents, but not really. One was Canadian, so, if you take the current exchange rate into account, it’s really 3.72 cents.

We found two hats today.

One is a skull cap that is worn under helmets and the like. The brown one is a large knit hat. Both are headed to Goodwill. Get it?

We found another lost padlock.

This one appears to be a Reese Trailer Hitch padlock. No sign of the trailer, though.

Someone lost a cat charm.

Also, a Tokyo Memory charm, a souvenir from a trip to Japan.

Or it could be a lost jacket zipper pull, but we don’t remember.

A lost license plate and bracket.

It was so crumpled that the entire number was unreadable, and we did not attempt to look it up.

This is bad news so close to Halloween.

A witch had a crash landing. Make that a trash landing.

Saturday, October 13^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

The weather this morning was about the same as yesterday. We found no roadkill, but we did find some real money.

On the freeway on-ramp we came across a one-dollar bill, the first folding money we have found in a while. It was about 75 feet from the turn-around point where we head back toward the intersection. We continued beyond the turnaround point and found another, and another… We finally gave up when we didn’t see any more ahead of us and were close to being on the freeway itself.

In all, there were a total of six one-dollar bills. When we got home, we noticed that the serial numbers were almost sequential.

We were missing 704 and 709 through 713. We may need to take an extra walk onto the freeway.

We also found a tool today.

A Torx drill bit, rusty but useable.

Two more items of clothing for Goodwill.

Another hat, for which we couldn’t find the shield on the Internet. Also, a pair of Adidas sandals. Yeah, they fall off Chuck’s feet too when he tries to wear them.

Well, this didn’t take long.

Two of the signs we saw earlier found their way onto the streets. Great.

At the park-and-ride, someone lost a key with two tags on it but nothing identifiable.

We left them on a light base so the owner might see them. Also, at the park-and-ride, were a murder of crows.

They were obviously waiting to make a right-hand turn.

Heading down Juanita-Woodinville Way toward home, we picked up half of a For Hire Taxi Driver Permit the size of a credit card. Then about half a block farther we found the other half. It had a name and photograph on it but no contact information. We watched a crow in the middle of the street checking out something and saw it pick up an object and drop it. When traffic cleared, we retrieved the object which was a wallet. It is the seventeenth wallet we’ve found.

The wallet was stripped bare except for the driver’s license, but the name matched the For Hire permit and his address was on the license. Later in the day we took it to the address and knocked on the door. A young lady answered, and we held up the wallet. Her face lit up with a huge smile and said her husband had her looking everywhere for it and was retracing his steps to the store. She thanked us and wished us a nice day. And it was a very nice day.

That wraps up another week. Our take,

• $6.0372.  Damned Canadian penny.
• 10,000 Massaged signs, soon to be litter.
• 6 Balls.
• 4 Roadkill.
• 4 Items of clothing including three hats.
• 2 Tools including a grease gun found over three weeks.
• 2 Joints, but no roaches.
• 2 charms, but one luckier than the other.
• 1 Reduced sausage.
• 1 Sent selfie.
• 1 Witch not in Oz anymore.
• 1 Waiting murder.
• 1 Found wallet with a good deed.

Have a great week and if you find a dollar bill with the serial number, A928927704A, it’s ours.