Mystery Solved!

For the last few months, The Boy and I have noticed trash in our trash bins that does not belong to the Hayleys. You know, things like empty cases of Michelob Light, empty two-liters of soda and fast food bags.

It's not that our bins can't handle the additions - most of the time, that is. It's that it is ANNOYING.

And finally, finally!, absentmindedness has paid off for me. {I always knew it would.}

I was late for work, the last to leave, and in a hurry to throw away the furbabies' litterbox unmentionables. And doesn't it figure that I threw it away in the recycling bin!

Major growl. No time to deal with this - but you can't leave litter and unmentionables in the recycling bin. Particularly since I'd never remember to retrieve it later.

So I pulled it out and noticed MORE TRASH that didn't belong to us. Irritating!

However, I finally found the evidence I needed to identify the culprit - an Amazon package wrap with the recipient's name and address. The guilty party is the teenage boy living in a house across our alley.

{My suspicion: trash in our bin is an attempt to hide purchases and other activity that mom and dad would discover if thrown in the family's bin.}

So, I jotted a note for the neighbors, left it at their front door and went on to work. As I drove off, I called The Boy to tell him that I'd solved The Mystery of the Unwanted Rubbish.

So what did you do? he asked.

And I told him - I wrote a note.

For some reason, he found the note - and my note paper - slightly amusing: