Marlboro Mystery – Photo: L. Weikel

An Odd Mystery

This will be brief.

I don’t know what’s blooming out there, but I’m assuming this headache and weird, slightly nauseous feeling that’s dogged me all day has something to do with allergies.

Whatever it is, I’m thinking sleep may be the best antidote.

In the meantime, I’ll leave you to ponder the mystery of the odd discovery Karl and I made while taking a walk late this afternoon.

What the Heck?

Even though I wasn’t feeling the greatest version of myself when I arrived home from my quick getaway to Long Beach Island, we decided to engage in the walkabout (4 miles). Shortly into our sojourn, not even half a mile at most, the mystery started taking shape.

“Oooh! Good boy,” we chirped to Spartacus practically in unison. We like to give him positive feedback when he helps locate trash along the roadside as we walk, and he was very clearly sniffing out an empty pack of Marlboros.

“Hmm, somebody must’ve been jettisoning their stash before they got home,” Karl laughed as Spartacus eagerly trotted a few yards further to nose at another empty Marlboro box buried in the weeds ahead of us.

Weirdly, this went on for about another quarter mile or so down our road, well past where we would normally turn to do our shorter, 2.2 mile version, of our walk. Every several feet, we would find an empty pack or two. All Marlboros.  All on the same side of the road.

This pattern went on until we had a bag full of eight empty packs of Marlboros.

Not our usual ‘haul.’

Weirder Still

But weirder still was how we then walked an additional 2.5 miles or so, taking three sharp turns to be on a third, completely different road, only to discover yet another empty pack of Marlboros nestled in the grass beside the road. Even as the crow flies, this loner was a good mile from the other eight.

What are the odds of finding nine empty packs of Marlboro cigarettes strewn along two different country roads on a fine September day?

I’ll leave you to ponder whether there was a message in such a bizarre discovery. (Besides the obvious one, which is that people can be littering jerks).

Sunset on a Field of Yellow Flowers – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-810)