Twenty Dollars – NOT – Trash Walking

Monday, December 23^rd, 2024 – Safeway

We started out TrashWalking Christmas Week with full expectations of happiness and joy. We didn’t find any money and removed a roadkill squirrel from the street. So, it seems they want to surprise us with happiness and joy later in the week. We found two tools, though.

A very nice bungee cord and a bag of plastic dental floss picks. Chuck said the TrashWalking Judges would never accept the picks, but Janet said she would have a talk with them, and they accepted the picks. She probably turned on some crocodile tears or something.

We picked up another rubber ducky to add to our growing collection.

This one was in the gutter at the intersection of Juanita-Woodinville Way and 100^th Ave NE. We should start ducking some Jeeps. It’s call Jeep Duck Duck.

We found a window sticker.

It looks like Santa is looking to replace his reindeer with a flying human. But it’s supposed to be a rock climber ascending a rock face. And dragging Santa’s sleigh behind him, of course.

This looked interesting.

It was a plastic cap about two inches in diameter with some channels etched into the back. It was stamped with “Nelson 5500.” Using Google, we found it was the top to a sprinkler.

Hey, we said that it looked interesting, not that it was interesting.

Tuesday, December 24^th, 2024 – Park-and-Ride

Today, Christmas Eve, was better. We did remove a rat from the road, but Chuck found ten cents at the freeway bus stop.

The dime was shiny and easy to spot straddling a groove in the concrete. Then after we took the photo, Janet spotted a penny in the groove a few feet away. We had to work a bit to get it out, but we succeeded. And yes, we checked the other grooves.

Near a gas station near the freeway, someone had a snack of tea and cookies.

The cup was about three-fourths full of tea with a tea bag in it and the two cans were empty cookie containers. No, really.

Okay, it seems this happens at least once every week.

Another urine bottle.

Wednesday, December 25^th, 2024 – Safeway & 100th

Merry Christmas! Our Christmas Day starts around noon when our kids and grandkids arrive so we walked. It was a very quiet walk with two joggers and no more than twenty cars on our three-and-a-half-hour walk. We exchanged Christmas greetings with the joggers and got one enthusiastic honk from one driver and an arm-out-the-window wave from another. We found neither money nor roadkill.

We picked up a ball about the size of a beach ball but covered in shiny red material.

This is probably another lost car Christmas decoration. We wish they would stay with the traditional car antlers.

They are easy for us to carry when we pick them up.

We found a pair of pants near a construction toilet.

We decided to leave them in case the guy who forgot them returns. Besides, in the case of pants abandoned near outhouses, discretion is indeed the better part or valor.

We came across a large wreck shatter-scatter.

There was one large piece that was stamped, “Generic Imprezza Front,” so it was another Subaru. We stacked up the small pieces on the larger piece, but it was too big for us to carry. We left it and hope that someone will deal with it. If not, we’ll stop by with the car.

We found a piece of stolen or lost mail.

When we find mail, if it is junk mail, we toss it, otherwise we either take it to the post office if there is a lot of mail or, as in this case, if it is a single piece of mail, we will re-mail it to the recipient. This was obviously a Christmas card, so not junk mail. But because the label seemed to be bulk printed, we thought it was probably from someone like an insurance or real estate agent. So, we opened it expecting to recycle it.

Whoops! It was a Christmas card thanking someone for their continuing services through the year. We put it back in the envelope and mailed it to the intended recipient with an explanation. And yes, we put the twenty-dollar bill back too.

Thursday, December 26^th, 2024 – 160th to 124th Street

Today the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory starting last night and ending today at 3:00 am. Hopefully Santa got home okay. When we started our walk, the wind was only two miles per hour with light rain. By the time we got halfway through our walk, the rain had picked up and the wind was gusting to about five or ten miles per hour, but not the fifty miles per hour predicted. None the less, we decided to shorten our walk and returned down 112^th Ave NE instead of going over Norway Hill, again choosing discretion over valor.

The first thing we found was that someone spent Christmas in the Brickyard park-and-ride bus stop on Juanita-Woodinville Way.

There was a tray of food remains with several cookies scattered and smashed on the ground. They also left a very large tee shirt.

Okay, that probably fits, in a couple of ways. We are sure they lost their cleaning deposit when they left.

They used the middle of the sidewalk instead of the guest restroom in the grass behind the bus stop. We are hoping the rain will flush it away.

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

It probably contained evidence of a serial litterer. The cops shouldn’t trust the litters to bring it to court when they appear.

We scored a bag with six unopened bottles of water.

Just for future reference, we prefer beer, but water is good.

Someone found a way to shop at Ross Dress for Less for even less.

We found these store theft security tabs at the bus stop on the freeway on-ramp. Given the current environment, the store employees think of these as door chimes.

Behind a service station we found about twenty empty liquor boxes, mainly two flavors of Crown Royal but some Patron Tequilas mixed in.

They even took the Costco price tag. How did they do that? Getting the booze past the checkers, not the price tag.

Someone tossed a utility light.

We found it was sold by Walgreens for about eight bucks. It seemed like a reasonable LED light with two magnets to attach to metal surfaces and a base that folds so it can stand on it’s own. Before we found it on Walgreen’s site, we tried to find a charging port or battery compartment but found nothing visible. The only description on the Walgreen’s site was, “Magnetic base attaches to any metal surface. Foldable stand & swivel hook. Uses 3 AAA batteries (not included).” That is a nonstarter for us. Any flashlights we keep are rechargeable. So, where is the battery compartment? There are two reviews on Walgreen’s website, a five-star and a one-star. The one-star review is:

AaronG44
2 years ago
I bought this to quickly fix an issue under my car for $8. Turns out, triple A batteries not included. I go back in, get four AAA batteries for $8, come back out… the battery insert is underneath 5 screws that require a miniature screwdriver. Sorry but not spending another $10 just to put the batteries in, what a rip-off.

Evidently, the five-star reviewer had a miniature screwdriver. It’s now in our Goodwill pile.

Friday, December 27^th, 2024 – 100th Ave NE

The temperatures remained mild for the end of the year, but we had light rain during our entire walk. Not too bad but becoming a bit annoying. We found some money today.

Six cents the hard way. Starting in the upper-left, Chuck found one at the 7Eleven driveway on 100^th Ave NE. Then, near a service station he found three more in the gutter. Then, Janet found the penny on the lower-left at her favorite drive-thru and another on NE 145^th St. Notice that one of Janet’ pennies is Canadian.

Okay, we’ll use this joke again. We found a hair styling tool.

It will help us to comb through our trash.

We found a lost wheel cover on Simonds Road.

It was damaged, which is probably why it was lost. Fortunately, there was a recycling bin about a hundred feet back, so we disposed of it.

Continuing up Simonds Road, we picked up several thin acetate cutouts.

We ended up with about half a bag of this Halloween stuff. It’s now the Christmas holiday season. This guy must have missed this year’s Leap Month change.

Saturday, December 28^th, 2024 – Riverside Drive

Today we had light rain again for most of our walk, but for the last hour or so, the wind and rain picked up and we returned home soaked. We removed a roadkill squirrel from the street but found no more money.

We picked up discarded gift card.