Last summer when a bunch of friends and I returned home from a week-long trip, I noticed that my friend Chelsea, relatively new to Los Angeles, had parked in a most unfortunate spot. Yes, she was close to the apartment, but not was her choice of parking sound in mind. As we pulled up next to her little silver Honda Civic, I excitedly proclaimed, "Ha, ha! You parked under the doo doo tree! You have a doo doo car!"And in fact she did.
It is my sixth summer in Los Angeles and I have come accustomed to a particular tree here in west LA. It lines many of the streets in and around my neighborhood and spots the rest. Every year in the winter I watch its branches sprout green leaves then come spring, the trees are in full bloom with little purple blossoms.
The trees are nice to look at and when you peer down a street with a lot of them, it makes west LA seem almost homey.
But just as soon as the trees are in full bloom and the strollers and passers-by are decidedly fooled by their deceptive beauty, the trees are a pleasantry for what seems about less than a week and then they turn into a nasty menace.
All of the "pretty" purple blossoms start to fall off along with the sap and the muck that nourishes the dam* oversized shrub.
Everything that was once ON the tree is now OFF the tree and has "doo-doo'd" on whatever was below it.
Can you only imagine all of this yuck on your car? But it's more than the shrubbery blanketing your car, it is the addition of the stickiness which absorbs all the nasties in the air and the dirt wafting by making for a sappy mess.
But not only that, the dead debris begins to stink and the stink lingers for weeks. A stink like the inside of a soda can recycling bin that has been sitting out in the sun for a really long time.
The "Jacrarandra" or so they call it, is no pleasantry. It is a neighborhood menace if you ask me.
This poor soul parked her car under this tree and has left it for over a week. I took these pics just one day after the car was left. I can only imagine what it looks like now. Though the seasonal dropping has essentially ended, the doo-doo has been done...
8 comments:
Oh, I can imagine all of that yuck on my car. I will never forget coming back from Belize only to learn the true nature of the doo doo tree. No sympathy from Miriam, though. Rather, open delight in finding company that can only come from one who has previously experienced such misery.
Well stated. I seriously have a love/hate relationship with those little purple things.
they are my favorite tree here in california. however when i catch myself saying that, i follow it quickly with a thank goodness it's not in my yard.
doo doo tree is the perfect name for it!
i love those trees! but, like everyone else am quickly reminded of the doo-doo factor. pretty purple, stinky trees.
funny! I've never noticed those doo doo trees but they are definitely quite pretty despite the doodooness
Is that Eva's car? Ha ha. Welcome home Eva!
Yup! that is eva's car! welcome home! poor soul...beware all: don't park under the purple trees!
If you have driven in my car you should know it's never clean on the outside... doodoo tree or not (our yard is full of crap trees - not to be mistaked with the doo doo tree). I knew where I was parked, my soul is not poor and guess what, my car still drives. It's for sure a love hate relationship with those large plants.
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