My drive today landed me at the intersection of Ridge Ave, N. 13th St., and Mt. Vernon St. — sort of floating in no-man’s land, triangulated by sections of Spring Garden, Poplar, and Callowhill. It was a stretch of sidewalk along a seemingly vacant lot that caught my eye:
I wound up picking up trash on three different streets in this area, and so far, Dunkin’ has an unbroken streak, making at least one appearance on every street I’ve cleaned. A lot of beer out there today, cigarette cases and cigarillo wrappers, chip bags and dope bags, too:
As you can gather from that picture, I’ve been doing this without gloves so far. An older man walked by today and gave me a friendly reminder of how nasty that is, joking around with me about how I was going to get my face and clothes all dirty and then break out in a rash, and then I’d really be in trouble, because my wife would be grossed out and I’d be sleeping in the dog house. He was all ready to offer me up a pair of gloves (it sounded like he usually carries some as COVID PPE), but he was fresh out. I promised him I’d buy a pair for next time.
I also think I’ve discovered a fundamental law of litter: that which is trash for your body tends to become trash in the street. Most of what I’ve seen is junk food, sugary drinks, or some form of drug.
Weirdest piece of litter for the day: unopened Hampton Farms peanut butter.
Runner-up is this half-full can of dried up body filler, scrap-wood stirrer cemented in place, with a warning label that lends credibility to the old man’s bit about me getting a rash (“MAY CAUSE ALLERGIC SKIN REACTION”):
As I was getting to the end of my clean up, and the end of Bird Furniture’s album Distant Violence and the Sun, I heard these lyrics, from the last song on the album, Now I Wear Your Laundry:
“Don’t put that in your mouth, you don’t know where it’s been or where it’s from…”
And it felt like a strange synchronicity, because the soundwaves coming through my headphones were telling me essentially the same thing as the old man who walked by a few minutes earlier.
Here are my bag receipts for the day, and you’ll notice there’s a prominent piece of litter that I left there in the street — it’s a dirty diaper with brownish slush oozing out, and given the warnings I’d just received from the old man and from Bird Furniture, I figured I’d just let that one be:
A man’s gotta have a code. I’m not sure exactly what mine is, but it definitely includes not picking up dirty diapers off the street bare handed.
I’ll be back out there early next week for round three.