What is this thing? (Photo enclosed.)

[Rain Man]

I do a lot of walking, and it seems like every week or two I'll see one of these wires lying on the sidewalk. Today I saw two of them several blocks apart. They're perhaps six to eight inches long.

What are these things? Where do they come from? They've always got that little minor corkscrew pattern, so there's got to be some reason why I keep seeing them.