Friday, November 14, 2014

A Mini Mystery

            














I am a street walker. Ha – bet I got your attention with that! I mean to say, I walk quite a bit along the streets of my neighborhood. I walk my dogs almost every day, and then, because I have a very old dog who cannot walk too far, I walk myself. I like to vary my route, walking some days on the east/west running streets and other days on the north/south running streets. Some days I get really crazy and combine the two. I often walk down streets I’ve never walked before. It is fun to check out others’ homes and gardens and front door color choices.
            
There is a very curious thing that I have seen on every walk I have taken for the three plus years I have lived here. On random streets throughout my neighborhood I see small empty plastic liquor bottles; the little ones you would get on a commercial airline. At first I thought nothing of it; perhaps it was just something that spilled from someone’s household trash. But I began to notice that as soon as the old bottles were flattened by someone’s car tire new bottles show up. And not just one bottle occasionally. I see several bottles scattered along different streets every day.

The brands and types of liquor vary also. I have seen vanilla vodka, Captain Morgan, tequila, Bacardi rum, bourbon, and various flavors of schnapps, just to name a few. I am stymied by this. Who is driving or walking through my neighborhood taking shots of alcohol from teeny tiny bottles? Is it a bored housewife? (I swear it isn’t me!) A teenager? Someone’s housekeeper walking to and from the bus stop? A businessman or woman on his/her way to work every morning? One of the many dog walkers in the neighborhood? The mail carrier?

Perhaps I should begin documenting where I find the bottles and map it out. I could enlist the other neighborhood street walkers, I mean walkers, to help me unravel the mystery. I can see it now. A bunch of middle aged women in trench coats with binoculars and walkie-talkies tailing suspicious looking characters (aka the school crossing guards, the teachers from the elementary school, etc.).

I’ll report back if this mystery is ever solved. In the meantime I should probably get a life.

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