TALES FROM THE EDGE OF THE EARTH: THINGS BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD

Found one of these by the side of the road.....

by Grant McGee

            When you’re riding around on a bicycle you find stuff, you see stuff you might not see when zipping by in your car.

            Just the other day I was out for a walk and found a neat-o name-brand folding box-cutter.  I went home and looked it up on The Great and Powerful Internet and found out that brand new it cost 20 bucks.

            Some stuff I see isn’t collectible, but it’s kind of like art…there’s a message….a story there.

            The message of most of the stuff is litterers have no consideration for others:  drink cups and bags from fast food joints, cans, bottles filled with body fluids tossed out by truckers… unspoken messages from people thinking in the moment, not thinking of others, people whose parents didn’t teach them good manners.  People just chucking stuff out their vehicle window, now that’s another story.

            It’s the curiosity trash that makes me think, ponder stories that may have happened.

            There was the pile of 20 or so beer cans with a pregnancy test perched on top of them.  What happened there?  Did someone park by the side of the road and have a small soiree to celebrate something?  And what did the pregnancy test read?  Hell, I don’t know.  I reckon I should’ve looked.

            Then there was the September 1969 issue of “Gent” magazine I found.  If you don’t know what “Gent” magazine was it was this:  A girlie magazine.  Open it up and there’s pictures of “nekkid wimmen” in there.

Probably the story here is some guys were cleaning out someone’s stuff, say, someone who died.  Then they found this girlie magazine from 1969.  They’re hauling the stuff off in a pickup, driving down the road laughing and pointing at what the readers of the late sixties found risqué.  Then the one holding the magazine says laughingly, “can you believe this stuff?”  Then he chucks it out the window.

            I found a fancy IPhone one of those high-dollar cell phones.  I was just tooling along on my bicycle and there it was in the grass.  The screen was smashed, it had moisture on the inside and dirt on the outside.  What was the story?  My first thought was it had been in someone’s purse, the purse had been snatched and the thief for some reason tossed it.  Maybe some rancher had it sitting on the seat of his pickup and, forgetting it was there, set a heavy load on it and it was smashed.  In his anger at having just destroyed the expensive device he tossed it.

            I’ve seen all kinds of women’s underthings by the side of the road.  Black underthings, white underthings, purple, leopard spotted.  I don’t throw my perfectly good underthings out by the side of the road, I’ve wondered why these people did.

            Of course, there’s the lone shoe:  how did the shoe come off going down the highway and/or where is the other one?

            I’ve found some good music, mostly cassettes, mostly Country (the Judds, Reba McEntire), Conjunto and Norteno.  Probably they were “eaten” by a cassette player and the owner chucked the tape out the window.  I just crack the case open and put the tape in a new case.

            Come to think of it, I’ve always looked around when riding my bike, a scooter or walking.  You never know what you’ll find.

            And then there’s the stuff I find by the side of the road I can’t haul on my bicycle.

            Not too long ago I rode by a perfectly good rug that was in front of a house, rolled up and laying by the side of the road.  I rode back and told The Lady of the House.  We have this ongoing project where we’re taking second-hand rugs and laying them out across the backyard…cuts down on the yard work and we are slowly replacing the old rugs with paving stones.

            Anyway, she and I dash back to the rolled-up rug.

            “Now if there’s a body in it, just drop your end and we’ll nonchalantly get back into the car,” I said.

            “So you didn’t smell anything as you rode by?” she asked.

            “No,” I said.  “It looks like a perfectly good rug.”

            So we pulled up to the rolled up thing.

            I got out, looked around.  No one was looking out the window of the house.

            We loaded it in our trunk and pulled away.

            “You’re my favorite scrounge,” said The Lady of the House patting me on the arm.

            Coming from The Lady of the House I considered that a high compliment.

            I smiled as yours truly, The Scrounge, and The Lady of the House drove home.

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