These days, I mostly run the same route each day; most of the time in the early morning, way before sun up. Despite feeling like I’m half awake when running on the early shift, I’m so used to my route that I can probably tell you where every crack in the road is and when there’s a new set of donut marks at an intersection.
One morning, I was out running in some light rain. An odd sparkle caught my eye in a gutter. I wrote it off as a reflection from an oncoming car’s headlights and didn’t think any more about it.
The next day, and the same odd sparkle caught my eye, again. Ok, its your mind playing tricks on you (or I’m having a geo-fenced stroke of some sort.) The next day I was curious to see if was there again. It was. Ok, probably not a stroke, and pretty sure its a real world object.
The day after that, I happened to be running during daylight hours. I slowed down a bit to survey the area. What ever it was wasn’t bright enough to see in day light or discern from the normal gravel and assorted muck normally in gutters, especially without my glasses. But, easy enough to pick out was a deflated purple balloon.
After some pondering, I guess it was some kind of LED used to light up a balloon. Does that even exist? Yep, they’re called LED party lights. Mystery solved.
So, the new game was to see how long the light would remain, either until the battery eventually gives it up, or the units meets up with the weekly street sweeper. It hung on for over 3 weeks. Then it was gone. The gutter in the area looked cleaner than I remembered, so I imagine that the street sweeper was the culprit.
Guess I have to find something new for my OCD riddled brain to obsess about.
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