License to Offend

Monday, March 31^st, 2025 – Safeway

We started the week dry with temperatures in the mid forties. We removed a roadkill rabbit from the street and found money.

A penny found at the drive-thru. Janet generally visits this drive-thru on Mondays and Fridays and has a small array of tools she uses to get coins out of a crack at the drive-thru.

A lost and found tool. Last Friday, Janet visited the drive-thru and when she got home, discovered she was missing a tool, a pick, and even drove back to the drive-thru to see if she accidently left it there. Today we found it.

It was about a mile from the drive-thru. We either picked the right path to pick up the pick, or the path that piqued our interest picked us. Your pick. Or pique.

“I’ll be back.” We found a smashed DVD of the Arnold Schwanzenager movie, “The Predator.”

We didn’t even try to play it and we’ve seen the movie anyway. It wasn’t bad, but one scene wrankles Chuck, and it is not the only movie that tries this. A soldier runs out of ammo with his M-16 rifle and picks up an electrically powered minigun that he brought along just in case.

Okay, this is cool in the movie, but Chuck as seen these weapons in action. The gun and the associated battery alone would weigh about 125 lbs. The firing rate is 2 to 6 thousand rounds-per-second. Even at the lowest speed, it would consume a hundred pounds of ammo in three seconds. So how long is this scene? Finally, the recoil force would be around 300 lbs. Perhaps the person who tossed this DVD was a physicist.

Another naughty condom.

Correction: Knotty condom.

We picked up a laminated card.

We were able to find it for sale for six bucks on the Internet. It is evidently a popular Japanese manga/anime/musical series named “Spy x Family” about a spy. In order to create a cover, he adopts a young girl who can read minds and marries a woman who is a professional assassin. A totally believable story. The card is a picture of the daughter.

“I got your back!”

We found an article of clothing, but it wasn’t another pair of undies. It was a Halloween tee shirt. It looked like it should glow in the dark, but so far, nothing.

One of the many TrashWalking-related things that bug us is the litter that road workers leave behind.

One left about twenty feet of fiberoptic cable. It wasn’t that heavy, but too bulky for us carry. We’ll let it sit for a few days to see if someone takes care of it, but we’re not holding our breath.

Tuesday, April 1^st, 2025 – Park-and-Ride

Another cool morning with no rain. Also, no money and no roadkill. And no tools or anything of much use. Well, there is this RV awning that someone left on the freeway off-ramp.

It was out of our league to take care of, but how did someone just lose it? Maybe the driver accidently pressed the automatic deployment button.

We found another shell casing, but this one has some white plastic around it.

A 9 mm shell casing across from the 7Eleven. We doubted it was from a gun bullet because of the plastic. On the bottom was stamped “IVT 9mm 19,” and after some research, more than it deserved, the IVT is a manufacturer code, 9mm is the caliber, and the 19 might be the year of manufacture. We didn’t see a “Best used by” date. Because of the plastic it is probably a blank or training ammunition. Makes sense, probably someone training to hold up the 7Eleven.

Yo!

Yep. Half of a yo-yo. We hauled it home, but we got rid of it because it had too many strings attached. No, we will not apologize for that.

We picked up another parking sucks card.

Obviously the driver didn’t care and tossed the card. But we heard that Tesla just released and updated self parking capability and it looks pretty good. This YouTube video is long but you can watch a bit of it to get the idea.

It always backs into a parking spot, so we are going to carry the Parking Sucks card and when we see a Tesla parked in backwards, we’ll place it on the windshield just for kicks. But, it is probably smart enough to get rid of the card before the owner returns.

Wednesday, April 2^nd, 2025 – Safeway & 100th

We found neither money nor roadkill today but we had a couple of “this is worth it” moments. First, on Monday, we found the coil of fiberoptic cable that we placed against the green equipment cover. Today, it was gone.

So, either a good Samaritan or the City Workers decided to remove it. Kudos for whomever did this. It’s nice seeing someone taking responsibilty without needing to fill out a form to do so. But we did some more looking around the area and found an expensive looking fiberoptic cable connector.

We recycled it.

Second, after we passed the 7Eleven on Juanita-Woodinville a car coming in the opposite direction pulled over the the curb and the driver asked what we were doing.

We told the driver we were picking up trash. Then he asked if we were paid or volunteered and when we said that we volunteered, he said, that’s great and asked us if he could give us a bottle of Champagne.

Startled, Janet said, “That would be hard to carry,” and thanked him. He went on his way, but perhaps we were too hasty. It could have been a bottle of 1973 Dom Perignom, $12,675. We would have carried that.

Okay, then things went downhill again. Figuratively, not literally.

Another urine cup. This one was another Starbuck’s “Urine Luck Latte” from Safeway. Sales must be good.

On Juanita-Woodinville Way, we spotted a small something sticking out of the dirt under a bush.

An expired insurance card that Robert tossed out the car window. It expired in 2011, fourteen years ago. You can’t blame us, we only started TrashWalking ten years ago when Chuck retired. So, figure with time off for good behavior, we walk 45 weeks per year. We walk past this location three times a week. That means we passed this point, let’s see, ten times forty-five times three times per week or about 1350 times, and only found it on the 1351st time. We should be fired. Please.

Thursday, April 3^rd, 2025 – 160th to 124th Street

We found neither money nor roadkill today but did find a tool.

A slightly rusty adjustable wrench, but very usable

We picked up a Seattle Metro knit cap.

It is exactly like the one we received in a gift bag from a retiring Metro bus driver a few years back. When we received the first one, we started wearing it on our walks, but people kept coming up to us asking about bus schedules, so we quit. We’ll send this one to Goodwill.

We found a glasses case with some magnetic lenses.

After some research, we found something similare online.

Ninety bucks, but that is with the Bluetooth audio frames which we are missing. We only found the sun shading filters. Through the Bluetooth, the guy hears the song, “I can see clearly now the frames are on, the only obstacles are in the rays…” It sounds familiar.

Yeah, we had to jump through some hoops today.

It was a portal to the sixties and Chuck is looking for that hot chick, Janet.

Friday, April 4^th, 2025 – 100th Ave NE

Today we removed a roadkill rat from the street and Janet harvested money at the drive-thru.

Twenty-six cents, bringing our grand total this week to twenty-seven cents with tomorrow yet to go. And we picked up two tools.

A garden hose nozzle and an 8-10 mm open end wrench. The nozzle was run over and unusable and the wrench was slightly bent, but very usable.

We picked up a nice tee shirt in excellent condition.

It’s an Adidas kid’s shirt, too small for Chuck. More fodder for Goodwill.

We picked up another wheel cover, a VW, this time.

We were curious about how many hubcaps we have found on our adventures, so we did a search of our posts and found 124 posts mention hubcap. This is the number of posts and there have been many times we have found two or three of them in a week, so the count is well above 124.

At the bus stop on Juanita-Woodinville Way, some homeless person left his cart that was missing a wheel. We left it for the Metro cleanup crew to handle. However, a block down the street we went down a path along a river for about fifty feet to check on litter. On the way out, we found the wheel, so whoever left the cart spent a night in the woods.

Saturday, April 5^th, 2025 – Riverside Drive

This morning was dry and cooler. It was nice to walk on dry roads for the first time in a while. We removed a bird and a vole from the road and didn’t find any money. But we found a tool.

Another garden hose nozzle, but it had been run over too. We’re getting hosed on tools this week.

There was a lot of trash along the road down to Riverside Drive. While venturing a little off the road after a beer can, we spotted a half-buried plastic bag.

Whatever was inside was very heavy, almost two pounds. When we got it home, we were able to identify it as a DreamLine shower door hinge, which was disappointing. We were hoping for something more exciting. They claim it is rust proof, and sure enough, no rust. However it did have some scratches, but they made no claims about surviving being run over.

Last week, there was a very used motor home on the freeway off-ramp.

Then, on Thursday when we went down 116th Ave NE, which parallels the off-ramp, we saw it parked there, with the wheel leaning against the vehicle. Today, as we reached the top of Brickyard Road, we saw this guy walk out of 116th Ave NE carrying a large plastic bag and wait for the bus. Perhaps he is on his way to pick up a new tire.

We found another DVD today and unlike the one earlier this week, this one is playable.

“The Long Kiss Goodnight.” The is a fun movie, but we already have this DVD in our collection, but we don’t have “The Preditor.” Just our luck.

As we passed by 116th Ave NE today, we saw some trash down the street. When we were picking up the trash, we saw a driver’s license.

A very familiar-looking driver’s license. We found another one two months ago:

The one today was issued in 2010 and expired in 2015. The one from two months ago was issued in 2012 and expired in 2016. So did she lose it, had it replaced then found the first one? Then we took a closer look.

Everything above the vital statistics is different. Something is fishy here. The names are existing people with a presence on the Internet, so we suspect that there is some identity thievery going on. Then again, they could be identical twin sisters, born sixteen years apart. Rough labor.

With that, we come to the end of another TrashWalking week. Our inventory:

• 27 Cents.  Back to the doldrums.
• 5 Tools, including a lost-and-found pick.
• 4 Balls.
• 4 Roadkill.
• 3 Articles of clothing, none that glow in the dark.
• 2 Unlucky DVDs.
• 1 Knotty, naughty condom.
• 1 Disappearing coil of fiberoptic cable.
• 1 RV awning, not hanging out.
• 1 Topless top, the spinning kind, not the wearing kind.
• 1 Sucky card looking for a self-parking Tesla.
• 1 Urine cup.
• 1 Outdated insurance card.
• 1 Pair smart glasses lenses without the smarts.
• 1 Portal to the sixties.
• 1 Unhinged hinge.
• 1 Listing Motorhome.
• 1 License of a repeat offender.
• 0 Bottles of Champagne.

Have a great week and let us know if you have a self-parking Tesla.