ADVENTURES IN PRIVATE TRANSPORTATION: Garbage Out
As usual, the southbound 110 freeway is snarled with bumper-to-bumper traffic approaching downtown L.A. Strangely, the northbound lanes have not a single car. “Not a single car,” just isn’t a phrase one hears in Los Angeles. No matter the time, no matter the place, no matter the activity, if it’s in L.A. it involves lots of cars. Usually too many cars. Not today.
As I creep southward, I hear sirens and see police strobes flashing red and blue in the distance, on the northbound side. Moments later, a powder blue garbage truck, escorted by five, unmarked, black, SUV’s with police strobes, zooms by headed north with the road all to themselves. “Keep [L.A.?] Beautiful” is emblazoned on the side of the truck is large, ornate letters.
I wonder, for a second, why garbage needs a motorcade. At which point, Donald Trump springs to mind. But being old enough to understand the the difference between the literal and the figurative, I dismiss the idea as absurd. Donald Trump is garbage, but he’s not literally garbage. But I digress.
A little farther on, more police vehicles block the roadway. A beige car is turned the wrong way in the passing lane. I can only see their tops because the wall dividing the north and south lanes is now too tall to see what’s happening on the ground. Beyond the wreck, the police have stopped all northbound traffic. The cars are jammed together, literally at a stand-still.
I have no ending for this adventure. What was actually happening remains a mystery and is just a strange start to the day. But I think an oddly colored load of garbage with a police escort, promising to make things beautiful, but instead leaving chaos and destruction in its wake, and bringing forward-progress to a halt, has to be a metaphor for… something.
