One Man’s Trash…

…Is another man’s blog fodder.

I don’t make it a habit to pick up random trash on the street, but I do have a tendency to pick up notes and letters. Most of the time, those notes are shopping lists or covered in anthrax, but every once in a while you find something interesting.

The other day Kevin and I were walking down to the local Baja Fresh to get some lunch (yes, some people actually do walk in LA – especially when their car doesn’t run anymore) and I found this in a strip mall parking lot.

I didn’t take a lot of care in scanning it, so I’ll give you the transcription:

Before you go spouting off about what a f*cking [ed] slut I am, or what a piece of trash I am, I suggest you first wipe the old, dry, white saliva thats [sic] caked on in the corners of your mouth, but are too wasted to realize just how nauseating it is to look at you. Especially when those lips are moving. Next, I suggest you dip that piece of road kill you crawled into bed with last night, in a bucket of bleach.

Interesting.

Really, I find this note very interesting. For one, and you can’t tell from the scan, but it’s on a piece of drawing paper. The handwriting is also interesting; it was the thing that drew my attention to the note in the first place. And the grammar and spelling…

I’ve used my immense background in forensic research to determine a few interesting facts about the author of the note.

1. I have determined that the author is an artist. Not only because of the use of drawing paper, but also because of the deliberate and fluid strokes she (I think it was a she) used to express herself with. She has the handwriting of an artist. Now, I’m not saying that she has good handwriting, just that she has the handwriting of an artist. Furthermore, the entire note was written in pencil. And when was the last time anyone but an artist or a grade-schooler use a pencil. I’m going to rule out grade-schooler in a second for other reasons, but the pencil used was also not your standard, scantron-test #2. It was a soft lead pencil. Let’s face it, no one other than artists have a soft lead pencil at hand when they make an impulsive emotional decision.

2. The author is between the ages of 21 and 30 (unless there is significant drug usage going on, then who knows, but I’m going to rule that out later too). This isn’t a note written by a kid. It’s goofy, yes, but there aren’t nearly enough spelling mistakes. The only word that’s spelled wrong in the entire note is the word “that’s,” she forgot the apostrophe, so it’s wrong in context, but not altogether incorrect. Plus there is only one swear word in the entire thing. And since the author never used the term “disrespecting,” not once, I’m going to have to say that it wasn’t written by a stupid kid, educated in the modern public school system.

3. The author has, or is getting, her college degree. It’s not just the spelling. The key here is the use of commas. For the most part, she uses them correctly. There aren’t too many people out there who would write a hate note with such precise comma usage. I don’t use commas right when I take all day to write something.

4. She was incredibly upset. Sure…duh. I know, but more upset than she’s used to being is my guess. She’s a good speller. She has okay grammar. She has decent handwriting. But in this note, she slips a couple times. This note was written impulsively and in haste, and I’m going to guess, placed under the windshield wiper of the recipient (the wastoid with the crud in the corners of his mouth that moves). She misuses a comma toward the end of the note and she has one sentence that takes a little deciphering, “I suggest you first wipe the old, dry, white saliva thats [sic] caked on in the corners of your mouth, but are too wasted to realize just how nauseating it is to look at you.” It took two readings for me to understand that one. But she did manage to work in the word “nauseating” and spell it right. Kudos.

5. She’s a horrible racist. While I think that her anger is justified in this case, no one wants to be cheated on with a piece of “road kill.” I don’t agree with her assertions that the skank her old boyfriend “crawled into bed with last night” should have to be white.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, honey, it’s time to move on.

And finally, if you hang out at the strip mall on the corner of Pico and Motor in LA, like to “party,” have dubious oral hygiene and have recently left your racist, artists girlfriend in favor of a dead, non-white animal…

I have your note.


Fun Fact: The coolest thing I ever found on the ground was an old typewriter. I cleaned it up and it’s now displayed in my dining area…

…Where I think it’s gathered more dust than it did sitting next to the dumpster where I found it.