The quest is over.
I finally found my first picks in the wild. I had almost given up hope three-quarters of the way through my three-mile dog walk when I had a moment of inspiration: the alleys! Up until then, I had been cataloguing the urban and natural detritus along the way: a Halls wrapper, various newspapers, flyers for garage door repair, beer bottles1, cans of soda (I didn’t even know RC still made canned soda), several plastic bottles of Squirt, thin vinyl gloves (all found individually in separate locations), red straws, various receipts, spent lottery scratchers2, broken glass, plastic soda tops, a lollipop stick, a Q-tip, orange peels, a banana peel, a corn husk, several COVID masks, many empty water bottles, a White Castle cheeseburger box, three Dunkin Donuts coffee cups, a Twix wrapper, a glass pint bottle of MD 20/20, and empty bag of cable ties, a White Claw can, a bag that once contained White Owl cherry sweets cigarillos, three Monaco cans, a paleta wrapper, a Spanish Jehovah’s Witness pamphlet, crushed mulberries, pine cones, maple tree samaras, and an empty bag of pistachios.
Most of the floss picks were concentrated in a two-block area, and most consisted of – and I had to research this, as I was confused by its colorful double-figure-eight shape and didn’t recognize it for what it was at first – Crayola Twistables Flossers. Most were concentrated near one garbage can, but could be found up the alley onto the next block. I did find two more conventional specimens in that alley, though.
Another thing I discovered is that cigarettes are almost exclusively kept to the side of the road (saw six butts), or in the alleys (saw many, many more there.) None on the ordinary public way. This is quite different than my recollection of my own youth in the 80s and 90s, where you could expect to find several butts wedged into the seams between slabs of sidewalk every ten steps or so.
1 I supposed it should be unsurprising that a neighborhood’s ethnic make-up would be reflected in its litter. Here Modelo was most represented, followed by Pacifico and a lone bottle of Carta Blanca. There was also a bottle of Tyskie and Okocim under the Orange Line, and a couple cans of Bud Light. The first grouping outnumbered the rest by about 6:1, which is close to the actual demographics.
2 Normally, I make it a habit to check a used ticket, just in case. Back in 1992, my friends and I were walking outside a bar when I spotted a discarded ticket and, before doing my citizenly duty of picking it up and throwing it in the trash, I had a quick look at it to see three exposed $25 boxes on this match-3 game. I cashed it in and treated my friends to Pizza Hut that night. Alas, it was too wet and dreary today to make the effort.
