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Mattress Mundanity
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2417 Reads
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I was unsure whether to file this under "Neighborhoods" or "Environment." I chose Neighborhoods because this is a telling example of how long we will tolerate blight before we clean it up.
Somewhere along my daily commute down La Brea, north from Stocker, lies a humble mattress. It rests slumped across a dirt path that runs parallel to the boulevard on its east side.
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I noticed the mattress had been dumped next to the roadway last fall as I was driving to work. It was many shades whiter at the time. And as winter passed, its once-bright cushioning took on ever-duller hues.
Now, the first green growths of early spring are themselves laying across this blighted bedding, perhaps trying to digest its rusting coiled springs and darkened, dingy coverings.
On this day, rain seeps into the mattress, leaving it a soiled, soggy sack.
Passing this spot amid my daily routine I wonder:
"When will *someone* finally haul this f-ing thing away so it doesn't muck up the greenery?!"
The answer, I have learned, day by day, is that we all seem to be too busy to be the ones to remove it. And cursed be whoever dumped it there in the first place. They chose a rare spot of natural beauty in this city to foul up with a tacky taste of bedroom banality.
I estimate this eyesore has now laid along my commute for some seventy-odd days -- at least.
With resignation, I have adopted the mattress as a social experiment: to see how long it will take for our community to get off its collective ass, get out there, take a few moments, and dispose of the thing.
I will keep LAVoice readers posted as to the status of the mattress. But every day that I drive by and it remains there, it becomes less and less a common mattress, and more of our society's deathbed.
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| Posted by: driftwood on Thursday, February 26, 2004 - 08:19 AM
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