Walkie-Talkie, No Talkie

Monday, May 19^th, 2025 – Spokane

About every three months, we visit some relatives in Spokane, Washington. We drove to Spokane on Sunday afternoon and returned Tuesday morning. However, we did take a couple of short walks Monday before and after our visit. And we found some money.

A dime and a penny close to each other in a parking lot. Spokane is a treasure trove.

We also encountered some roadkill, one of which we were involved with. As we were travelling about seventy miles per hour on Interstate 90 near George, WA, a bird flew in front of us, hit our hood and bounced off the windshield. Okay, at 70 mph, more accurately we hit it, but we do not claim any responsibility. And no, we did not go back and remove it from the road.

We came across the second roadkill on our walk.

Guess venison is on the Texas Roadhouse menu tonight.

Here are some items we acquired on our walk.

A screw, a washer, and several tire weights. There is a tire store close to where we walked, so the lost tire weights are not a good recommendation for them. They must have some unbalanced customers. The item on the left is a cheap plastic case for credit cards, six bucks on Amazon. It holds up to ten credit cards. With that much credit, one should be able to get a better wallet.

Whenever we go to Spokane, we visit a small, pet-and-people friendly brewery, the Humble Abode. On this visit, we met this fellow.

His owner claimed he was an extra as an Ewok in the Star Wars movie. It makes sense. He was too short to be Chewbabacca.

The last thing we found was a book.

“When I was a bridesmaid.” It was a gift from a bride to her bridesmaids. This is the perfect way to tell someone, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” [Helpful hint: Given the price of weddings, an email with “loser” would be more cost effective.]

Wednesday, May 21^st, 2025 – Safeway & 100th

We are back to our normal routine this morning. We removed a roadkill rat from the street and found some money at the food truck.

A dime. We are not sure where the gold color came from, but it was a silver dime. The dime was nice, but we also found more money.

The drive-thru employees forgot to take in their tip container and there was more than two dollars in it. Oh, wait, perhaps they left it for us? No, it was tempting but we left it.

We saw some deer on our walk today.

We saw them and thought, “How peaceful and serene.” They stared back and thought, “Look at those idiots picking up trash.” Yes, but we are serene idiots picking up trash.

We found an icon of St. Jude.

St. Jude is the patron saint of desperate situations and lost causes. Thanks, but we’re not quite there yet. On the other hand, the person that lost this next item might be.

It fits both circumstances. It is a lost cause and most definitely a desperate situation. Does this count as two more lost balls on our inventory this week?

Thursday, May 22^nd, 2025 – 160th to 124th Street

Today, we picked up no money and removed a roadkill crow. Fortunately, no other crows were around to see us remove it, otherwise we could have been blamed and screwed. But we found the right tool for it.

An unused screwdriver drill bit.

A kid’s arithmetic test.

He aced it. He put nothing in all the answers. Smart kid. Not sure if the teacher had a sense of humor or not.

We picked up some other random items today, so here goes. You know those magnetic key boxes that you hide somewhere on your car in case you lose your key?

Well, we picked up pieces of the box along with the key.

We found a 1969 Camaro in the ditch.

We’ll put it with the other Hot Wheels cars we’ve found.

Someone tossed a nearly full bag of pretzels on the freeway overpass.

We played Pick-Up-Stix, but it was no fun. Janet kept eating the sticks.

The Bothell mowing machines have started up. For us it makes our work both easier and harder. It’s better since we can once again see the trash. And worse since we can see the trash we have missed due to the weeds. Case in point, a bicycle helmet lost in the weeds was found by the mower.

We think this helmet may have lost its safety rating.

We picked up a bent spoon.

No doubt from someone practicing telekinesis powers of spoon bending made popular by Uri Geller. We go to a lot of restaruants that he must frequent.

Friday, May 23^rd, 2025 – 100th Ave NE

Today, we remove three roadkill: a vole; a robin; and a rabbit. But we found money to make up for it.

A single penny at the drive-thru. We need to negotiate our price-per-roadkill (PPRK).

But we also found a tool.

Another Walkie-Talkie exactly like the one we found a while back, so now we have two. The problem is we don’t have a charger for them. Now if someone loses a charger we’d be in business. We could use them to stay in touch on our walks. Granted, we both have cell phones, but these would make us look more professional.

We picked up two of Kimberly’s credit cards about twenty feet apart.

This usually means someone got hold of her wallet and was driving down the street tossing out the stuff he doesen’t want. We kept a watch for more cards, but this was all we found. The American Express card is made of metal. It would make Oddjob proud.

We found this sign.

We think it reads “Conger Vet.” We don’t know of many people who own pet conger eels. However, today we learned that some friends of ours have pet jellyfish, so, who knows?

We found this in the parking area at the top of the Tolt Pipeline trail.

With the help of Google, we found this is a tattoo needle with some red ink. Obviously, a pop-up tattoo parlor. She got a tattoo that says, “I make impulsive decisions and I’m not afraid of tetanus.”

Saturday, May 24^th, 2025 – Riverside Drive

This morning’s weather was warm and sunny. We removed two roadkill from the street, a squirrel and a bird, but we found money all along the route.

We picked up a penny in the Bothell parking lot, then a dime followed by a quarter, a dime, and another penny in front of the apartments on Woodinville Drive. A nice one-day haul.

Then we found thirty dollars worth of lottery tickets.

We were hopeful, but they were all losers. This guy is a very bad at financial planning, but good at littering.

But the high point of the morning was the person who stopped to thank us for cleaning up the litter.

It was a nice way to wrap up our shortened TrashWalking week. Our inventory:

• 69 Cents, including eleven cents from Spokane.
• 12 Balls, short of the record of 15 balls in a week.
• 11 Roadkill, including the dear.  This ties the record most roadkill in a week.
• 6 Losing scratch cards.
• 2 Walkie-talkies in search of a charge.
• 2 Deer, not roadkill.
• 1 Tool, a screwdriver drill bit .
• 1 Updated Texas Roadhouse menu.
• 1 Ewok extra.
• 1 Loser bridesmaid.
• 1 Aced arithmatic test.
• 1 Car in the ditch.
• 1 Unsafe safety helmet.
• 1 Psychic spoon.
• 1 Eel veterinarian who probably handles jellyfish also.
• 1 DIY tattoo kit, one color.
• 1 Pair of lost balls. Even counting these, we wouldn’t have broken the ball record.

Have a great week, and be careful at the Texas Roadhouse.