I’ve been walking around outside this year far more than at any time in my life. Honestly, it feels like I’m walking aimlessly outside more than anyone has ever walked. I averaged over 11000 steps a day last month and am looking to beat that this month. With all this walking around, I have found quite a few cool items hanging out on the ground waiting to be picked up. This seems like as good a time as ever to share some of my best finds so far.
I want to start with this food bag I found one day near North Lamar Transit Center. There is some community outreach in the area that works with homeless people and newly released felons. One thing the organization does is hand out these bags with snacks in them. I guess the people that get the help think they are too good for it or something, because I see bags like this left on the ground nearby frequently. I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth so I happy grabbed up this one.
The bag itself was cool to the touch when I picked it up despite this being early afternoon. That meant it must have been dropped recently. I was already hungry when I happened on the bag, so I quickly devoured the Cheez-Its, string cheese, and oranges. I gave the unopened apple juice away to some kid and brought the sunflower seeds home.
I had never heard of Neuro mints before I found an unopened package of twelve sitting on a park bench covered in graffiti. These Sleep & Recharge mints use the power of melatonin and chamomile to help you fall asleep fast. You pop one in and suck it like a Tic Tac or a Mentos and it helps put you out in 20 minutes.
I used one when I needed to get up crazy early one day. I popped it in and played some silly YouTube video about an ancient civilization or the science behind black holes or some such. Within ten minutes I was out. I tried it again a few weeks later when I needed to hit the sack early and it worked again. I guess I’m sold. Neuro makes more mints to promote concentration, memory, and calmness. If I find any of those on a park bench I’ll try them too.
For those of you who do not believe in an all-knowing and benevolent God, I ask you to explain this next set of pictures.
Alright, admittedly some context may be necessary here. At the beginning of this summer I got a fruit fly infestation in my apartment. I’m not one hundred percent certain how it happened. One must have gotten in and laid some eggs in my trash or something. Anyways, due largely to my refusal to actually clean my kitchen and take out the trash like a normal person, a few flies became a lot of flies a few days later. Those flies expanded their nascent empire from the kitchen to include the bathroom in a few more days.
By that point I was fully invested in doing everything to end the outbreak. I was cleaning up after myself like a normie. I poured apple cider vinegar and ammonia down my drains. I maniacally tossed out any trash as soon as I created it. None of it had any lasting effect on the situation. I briefly considered throwing in with the invaders and becoming Lord of the Flies. But then I realized they didn’t need me at all. I would just be Jester of the Flies if anything.
While I was at my most desperate was when I found this Zevo behind a dumpster. I truly believe the Lord himself left it there for me to find. The box had one electronic trap with three cartridges. I plugged it in overnight and awoke to dozens of those things dead in the trap. The tide had finally turned. Through perseverance, continued hygienic practices, and efficient use of all three Zevo cartridges I was able to lick the incursion.
Outside of the supermarket one day I found two cans of Zoa. Zoa is the energy drink from The Rock. The Brahma Bull, The People’s Champion. The most electrifying man in sports entertainment. Normally I don’t drink this sort of stuff, but they were free so I took them home and stuck them in the fridge.
When I drank them the next day they were pretty much exactly what I, a non-fan of these sorts of drinks, expected. The fruit punch taste was okay but was overpowered by a tinny aftertaste and that “too sweet” taste you got from artificial sweeteners. I can only complain so much because they were free, but I wouldn’t ever pay for one of these. In order to improve the product, what I think…
… okay, I’ll shut up and move on.
Yes I will address the elephant in the room. A lot of these treasures I discovered have been food. It makes sense that I would notice food above everything else, I am a very food motivated individual. Coming out of the library I found this collection of jerky strewn about on the ground. I rounded them up into a small pile before taking the first picture.
I tossed these into my backpack and kind of forgot all about them. While on one of my hikes I was dying for a snack and remembered this turkey jerky existed. They were great to get me over the finish line that day and on a few hikes since. The taste was as salty as expected and spicier than expected. I enjoyed these and would even buy more with my own money in the future.
I found this black gardening hat less than a block from my apartment. And, yes, I washed it before I put it on. Great for keeping the sun out of my face. Big, floppy brim and easily foldable to fit in my pocket.
As useful as this hat was it wasn’t something I needed. I already had three boonie hats so I had little need for a fourth one. After rocking this thing for a couple weeks I gave it to Goodwill. And, yes, I washed it first. I like to think some little old white lady is planting petunias somewhere in greater Austin while wearing the awesome black hat she found as a bargain at the thrift store.
This one happened just last weekend. Not long after I wrote my whole post about the twentieth anniversary of quitting smoking. If it had found three cigarettes 21 years ago I would have been overjoyed. If I had noticed that they were Marlboros, like these, I’d have done the Ray Lewis dance for a full fifteen seconds.
What really happened is that I merely stopped and contemplated why someone would have dropped these and not gone back to pick them up, considering the price of cigarettes nowadays. Then I decided to take a couple of pictures. Then, if I’m being honest, I thought for a fleeting moment about how nice it would be to smoke one. Then I just walked away.
Insert something profound about how the things you find actually find you.
