SHOW us YOUR PIX here .... Odd, WeiRd ,UnUSuAl or EyE CaTchIng things from your rides

Readytoride · Jan 27, 2024

OK. I don't have a picture to go with this story of what is the most interesting thing I've found on the road EVER to date- and that includes the $50 check made out to the local foxhunt and the $20 bill on the side of the road.

No, this one really takes the cake. And I wouldn't have seen it except for the fact that I was combining my 9 mile ride today with my adopted road litter pickup.

So, I'm about 4 miles into my 5 miles of adopted highway, already with a full bag of litter in the bag on my bike trailer, when I spot a strange bit of litter - a small light blue pharmacy type box and some kind of a test stick next to it. At first glance I noticed the test had been used as the normally clear test window carried a distinct marking. I bent down and looked a bit closer, thinking it was a Covid test. I didn't have my reading glasses on, so I picked up the item with my grabber stick to get a closer look.

And when I did, and saw what I had, I burst out laughing.

Nope. It wasn't a Covid test. It was a pregnancy test. A used pregnancy test. The results Instructions printed next to what would normally be a blank window pretty much made that clear. One line for negative, two lines for positive.

Now why, for the love of all things holy, would someone pitch a used pregnancy test out the window of the car while flying down the road? And include the box as well? Either frustration or relief was involved. Hard to tell.

Both the pretty little box, and the used test stick, went into the litter bag as I kept laughing. The litter bag was already bulging full so I tied it and left it on the side of the road for me to collect later to take to the VDOT depot for disposal. It wasn't until I was further down the road that I realized I'd missed the opportunity to take a picture of the test before tossing it.

I wonder what the Virginia Adopt-a-Highway folks are going to think when they read my online pickup report on Monday in the category box of "unusual things found during the litter pickup".

Oh, the test? I was going to let you all guess first before I share those results....

Jeremy McCreary · Jan 27, 2024

Readytoride said:
OK. I don't have a picture to go with this story of what is the most interesting thing I've found on the road EVER to date- and that includes the $50 check made out to the local foxhunt and the $20 bill on the side of the road.

No, this one really takes the cake. And I wouldn't have seen it except for the fact that I was combining my 9 mile ride today with my adopted road litter pickup.

So, I'm about 4 miles into my 5 miles of adopted highway, already with a full bag of litter in the bag on my bike trailer, when I spot a strange bit of litter - a small light blue pharmacy type box and some kind of a test stick next to it. At first glance I noticed the test had been used as the normally clear test window carried a distinct marking. I bent down and looked a bit closer, thinking it was a Covid test. I didn't have my reading glasses on, so I picked up the item with my grabber stick to get a closer look.

And when I did, and saw what I had, I burst out laughing.

Nope. It wasn't a Covid test. It was a pregnancy test. A used pregnancy test. The results Instructions printed next to what would normally be a blank window pretty much made that clear. One line for negative, two lines for positive.

Now why, for the love of all things holy, would someone pitch a used pregnancy test out the window of the car while flying down the road? And include the box as well? Either frustration or relief was involved. Hard to tell.

Both the pretty little box, and the used test stick, went into the litter bag as I kept laughing. The litter bag was already bulging full so I tied it and left it on the side of the road for me to collect later to take to the VDOT depot for disposal. It wasn't until I was further down the road that I realized I'd missed the opportunity to take a picture of the test before tossing it.

I wonder what the Virginia Adopt-a-Highway folks are going to think when they read my online pickup report on Monday in the category box of "unusual things found during the litter pickup".

Oh, the test? I was going to let you all guess first before I share those results....

Since the indicator was found right next to its box, they probably didn't come from an airplane or helicopter. Probably not from a moving car, either. And probably not even thrown, just dropped straight down.

Also guessing that most women have not had the training needed to collect urine in a moving car — especially while driving. Of course, applying make-up while driving is a very different skill set. For one thing, you've got a well-positioned built-in mirror and some light to see what you're doing.

Besides, anyone with the requisite skills might well have taken all those texting and driving ads to heart. Testing and driving's gotta be worse, even if you're highly trained.

So, pretty sure the car was parked when the littering occurred, no matter who was driving.

Here, then, is how I think it all went down...

The understandably anxious subject just couldn't wait till she got home to take the test and see the result. Or maybe her partner couldn't wait. Either way, the car pulled over, and she took the test in the passenger seat with the door open to get some room without giving up too much privacy.

At some point, she distractedly dropped the box on the ground to free up a hand. With the specimen collected and the indicator treated, she then waited for what must have seemed like an eternity, eyes glued to the indicator, legs still out the passenger door.

People sometimes drop whatever they're holding when they get particularly good or bad news. And so it was with the subject when the "+" sign came into view. Eventually the car drove off, the occupant(s) having forgotten all about the litter they'd left behind.

Readytoride · Jan 27, 2024

Jeremy McCreary said:
So, pretty sure the car was parked when the littering occurred, no matter who was driving.

That would seem reasonable except (I should have mentioned the road itself) it would have been impossible for a car to park along this road (rural, paved, very fast traffic, zero shoulders with twisting blind corners) at the spot where the test was found. They would have been killed by speeding traffic going over the speed limit around a blind turn. I'm lucky there is even room for me to walk, let alone park my bike with the trailer (which is festooned with blinkies so even the blind can't miss it.)

No, this was definitely tossed from a moving car, truck, whatever. I'm thinking the test stick was used elsewhere, and then tucked back in the box, and in a purse, until the evidence could be secretly tossed in the deep grass along a fast rural road surrounded by open pasturelands where supposedly no one except the gazing cattle would be the wiser.

Might have worked if they hadn't thrown it out on an adopted road.

I got the feeling the test was probably taken with a sense of worry, and tossed with a sense of relief, if that's any clue.

Jeremy McCreary · Jan 27, 2024

Readytoride said:
That would seem reasonable except (I should have mentioned the road itself) it would have been impossible for a car to park along this road (rural, paved, very fast traffic, zero shoulders with twisting blind corners) at the spot where the test was found. They would have been killed by speeding traffic going over the speed limit around a blind turn. I'm lucky there is even room for me to walk, let alone park my bike with the trailer (which is festooned with blinkies so even the blind can't miss it.)

No, this was definitely tossed from a moving car, truck, whatever. I'm thinking the test stick was used elsewhere, and then tucked back in the box, and in a purse, until the evidence could be tossed in the deep grass along a fast rural road surrounded by open pasturelands where supposedly no one would be the wiser.

Might have worked if they hadn't thrown it out on an adopted road.

Was probably taken with a sense of worry, and tossed with a sense of relief, if that's any clue.

Well, I got nearly every part of that wrong.

Just hope that I was right in thinking that most women lack the training to take their own urine specimens in a moving car. And that testing while driving is a bad idea

Otherwise, it's a lot more dangerous out there than I thought.

Readytoride · Jan 27, 2024

I do have to be careful picking up litter on my paved adopted road because of the lack of decent road shoulders (deep ditches for rainwater mitigation) heavy weeds and brush, sharp dropoffs), and blind corners. We have only this one paved road going through our neck of the woods, the rest are gravel roads. Cyclists love to ride here because even the gravel roads are beautifully maintained and the scenery (fields and mountains) is lovely.

I will say this particular piece of litter was the most intensely personal thing I've ever seen while cycling down a road.

Jeremy McCreary · Jan 28, 2024

Readytoride said:
I do have to be careful picking up litter on my paved adopted road because of the lack of decent road shoulders (deep ditches for rainwater mitigation) heavy weeds and brush, sharp dropoffs), and blind corners. We have only this one paved road going through our neck of the woods, the rest are gravel roads. Cyclists love to ride here because even the gravel roads are beautifully maintained and the scenery (fields and mountains) is lovely.

I will say this particular piece of litter was the most intensely personal thing I've ever seen while cycling down a road.

Hats off! Hope the volunteer organization and your neighbors appreciate the hazardous duty you've taken on.

I guess every piece of litter has a story to tell — though mostly boring tales of fast food, takeout coffee, and cigarettes. But based on the glimpses @fooferdoggie has given us, you might find some pretty interesting stuff on pickup duty in Portland.

fooferdoggie · Jan 28, 2024

Jeremy McCreary said:
Hats off! Hope the volunteer organization and your neighbors appreciate the hazardous duty you've taken on.

I guess every piece of litter has a story to tell — though mostly boring tales of fast food, takeout coffee, and cigarettes. But based on the glimpses @fooferdoggie has given us, you might find some pretty interesting stuff on pickup duty in Portland.

Most of it has been picked through and carried around so many times but the homeless. though I see the oddest things like tv's cat trees and all kinds of crazy stuff.

Readytoride · Jan 28, 2024

Jeremy McCreary said:
Hats off! Hope the volunteer organization and your neighbors appreciate the hazardous duty you've taken on.

Thank you!

Trust me that I always, without fail, have a motorist or two slow down to a crawl just to call out their thanks to me when I'm "on the job". It's always heartwarming. I smile and wave to everyone, and have just about everyone wave and smile back. Neighbors ALWAYS stop for a moment to chat, which I love. Some I see more often when I'm out on the road picking up litter than when I'm home. I've been Volunteer of the Month with VDOT for their Adopt-a-Highway program, and two years back I was awarded the Volunteer of the Year for a statewide preservation society for annually cleaning up the 60 miles of roads they use for their annual benefit bike ride. They comp me for the ride as thanks, which I think is sweet. So the job isn't without some nice perks.

My 2016 LaFree is the ebike that does a yeoman's job carrying me and pulling the trailer. Its a step through, uncomplicated carbon belt drive, so is a perfect fit for the endless stop/dismount/remount/go involved, and has no problem cruising down the road pulling a laden trailer. I could not do these cleanups so frequently without an ebike.

The litter pickup volunteer org has been in existence since 1972. I started with them when a neighbor and fellow equestrian (who was an area leader with the org) managed to drag a reluctant me out to help her clean the roads in the Spring of 2002. She was a tiny little old lady, 4'10", sweet, funny, and full of life. Always riding a horse that had been many times rejected by anyone sane, and yet she loved them and they returned that love and took care of her. She had so many wonderful stories to tell about the early days in our county. One was when she was helping with the 1960 census, in the western part of the county next to the Blue Ridge Mountains. She rode her horse up the steep mountain gravel roads to record the residents living on the mountain side. She refused to drive her car up only to "ruin my brakes trying to descend the mountain!" In 2006 she suffered a riding accident when a horse she was schooling tripped and went down. The fall paralyzed her from the neck down. She died in 2008 at age 71 as a result of the paralysis, but before her death she made her son faithfully promise to let her favorite horse live out its life on her small farm. Everytime I see him on the road I ask how the old horse is doing. He rolls his eyes and declares that mare will NEVER die just to spite him. That animal has to be 40 years old now if its a day! Despite all the odds that had been stacked against her early on (which probably contributed to her being a hoarder - I kid you not! An unbelievable contradiction that boggled the mind!) she always had a ready smile.

I still miss her.