The Le Petomane Freeway — An abandoned mattress has given up on life after being left for naught on Los Angeles’ famous Le Petomane Freeway early Wednesday morning. According to several people who almost collided and lost their lives with the forsaken bed device, it fell off the back of a 1968 Ford pickup truck and “just laid there” for several hours, not moving.
“I was just on my way to work when suddenly there was this sad mattress in the road,” said Honeywell mainframe programmer Fred Silverman who nearly collided with the mattress in his Ford Pinto Roundabout. “I swerved out-of-the-way, but it didn’t move. It just seemed to have given up on life.”
After about 4 hours and nearly 27 near-accidents on the busy freeway, California Highway Patrol officer Jim Bigsby managed to pull the despondent mattress to the side of the road. The Fazzler caught up with the mattress later in the afternoon.
“Nobody loves me anymore,” said the distressed mattress. “One moment you’re useful and providing comfort and service to someone else, and then suddenly, you’re falling ass-first on the highway from the back of a filthy pickup truck. What’s the point? Why bother with anything.”
According to a spokesperson from Mattresses without Borders, a French-based international bedding outreach and recovery organization, this, unfortunately, is what happens to most mattresses at the end of their lives.
“I wish this was the exception and not the rule, but it’s just a fact of life,” said Mattresses without Borders spokeswoman Bethany Millbright speaking from their Pasadena, CA office. “They spend their entire lives in service to us, and how do we pay them back? By taking them to the Waste Management transfer station or, worse, abandoning them on the side of the road. We do the best we can to help them, but there’s only so much we can do.”
As for what’s being called the “Le Petomane mattress,” it has been taken to a local shelter for a checkup and a refurbishment.
