1.) A pair of discarded pants, but I see this so often I have stopped speculating about what happened to the former owner of the pants. Venture to guess that it is a common gang ritual to drive folks around and de-pants them as a form of hazing for new initiates. Also believe that the local scuzzy carwash is a drug front and is used to dispose of evidence, as there seems to be a steady supply of orphaned personal items scattered thereabouts.

2.) Alas, the Lone Cucumber. Actually, the whole cucumber I saw lying all by its lonesome in the middle of the street by the grocery store turned out to have a brother and a sister close by, left to rot on the sidewalk. Sadly, the girl cucumber did not make it, because someone had eaten her ass half, so the cuke body count is now up to 2.5 gourds. R.I.P. Cucumber Girl. I briefly considered drawing a chalk cucumber outline around her, but I actually don't want to be thrown in with the loonies in case the new mayor decides to do a roundup or something.

Attention, Mayor Villaraigosa: there is a cucumber looter amongst us. His M.O. is to run into Von's, fondle, then abscond with two or three cukes, stuffing them down his pants, and then flee down the street, occasionally whipping one out to gnaw on, unless his plan is thwarted by a gang of irate produce managers, in which case he jettisons the injured cukes into the street and disguises himself as a potted plant in the floral department. Beware, the Cuke Looter is armed and extremely nucking futs.

3.) A bright blue reservoir tip condom. It was kind of halfway in between a cobalt and an electric blue. It caught my eye and was rolled up to the tip so I didn't know what it was at first. I just thought, durrr, ooOOoh...blue PRITTY!! and almost bent down to pick it up. Eyyyyarrrgh-! Wringing wrists in horror, recoiling from imaginary prophylactic that I almost touched. Fortunately, it did not appear to be used. Not that this explains its naked, unsheathed state...

4.) Freak of the Week: down by the carwash, this guy with no shoes on (it's 7,000 degrees centigrade out) stepping on some dead Slurpee containers and holding his arms out for balance, then walking veeerrrrry slowly, as if thinking, "whooooa. My flesh boiling on the hot street feels sooooo goood."

I suspect drugs. Specifically, E.
And, gentlemen, I think we have our gang hazing victim, cucumber thief, and blue rubber litterer, all rolled into one crazy, hazy, crunchy burrito of fun. I think I shall gift-wrap him neatly in cellophane and send him to the mayor's office.

Case closed.