Just when you thought everything along the Magic Commute was beautiful up steps the Royal Wash & Dry

A little different approach today to things seen through the windshield along the Magic Commute. For the sake of fairness and the occasional cry of "Oh my God!", it should be reported that not everything I see is a beautiful sunrise, a row of brilliantly colored berries or a grasshopper in its green glory staring back at me. Above, for example, you'll find the mysterious empty bottle of Listerine that's been littering our parking lot at work for several weeks. Why, I wonder, would anyone drop this economy-sized empty in a parking lot? In route to an especially hot date, perhaps, or an important interview? Guzzling for its possible alcohol content? Been swilling a few at The Depot and trying to cover up before going home to the wife? We'll never know, but I gathered a few other parking-lot specimens and grouped them for a photo. The purple bottle is some kind of diet potion and the newspaper is the Excelsior Springs Standard newspaper, which some have cruelly dubbed the Low Standard. Below is a wash-and-dry establishment on Royle Street in Richmond. The photo's been "posterized," which is a feature of Photoshop I clicked out of curiosity and stuck with. Truth be told, the business (no longer operating as far as I can tell) doesn't look much different in the non-posterized version. As you can see, at the time Richmond had a fairly permissive sign code. Another point of note is that the street name is spelled Royle. At least one street sign in town misspells it "Royal," and I'm only guessing that the laundry entrepreneur followed suit. If you've ever seen people stirring their wash with a stick the size of an axe handle, this would be the place.