Broken Hanger

Walking with Dan these past two days (very much need a hat!) I came across a broken plastic coat hanger on the side of the street. Any story teller worth their salt should be able to turn that in to a story, right? Let's ask some questions:

• Who does/did the hanger belong to?
• Why did they drop it?
• Did they notice?
• If so, why didn't they pick it up? What kind of person would not pick it up?
• If they did not notice, why not? Were they distracted? Focused on something else?
• Was it already broken? Did the fall break it?

After a block or two of dead ends, I arrived at: 

a person was cleaning out a basement and put a large pile of items on the side of the street-- an old tv, a broken book case, a hand full of broken hangers... When the trash was collected, the sorry old hanger was accidentally left behind. The trash truck was long down the street before anybody noticed...  

Not a very exciting story... so let's expand:

• could the hanger be evidence of something else? 
• Were they discarding things from some crime, and that this innocuous little item carried a sliver of proof? 
• Was there a thread still attached? 
• DNA? 
• But would you really discard evidence on the side of the street?  Probably not.
• Maybe it was a landlord cleaning out after a rental?
• What was the crime? Had a kidnapped person's clothes been on that hanger, and they were now long gone, but this proved they were there...

Anyway I'm not so sure this story has legs, but it was interesting to spend a few blocks of my walk asking questions and seeing where they would take me.

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Also, I have been watching lectures from Brandon Sanderson about writing SciFi/Fantasy novels. Very interesting stuff!