Gross Factor: High

Before I headed down to SLO this weekend, I told my friend Joanne (who hates when I give her a 'boring' pseudonym like 'Jan') that I would take a picture of bubble gum alley for her.

My friend, the BOS, grew up in SLO and when she moved there as a teenager, the gum was just up at the highest reachable row. Then the film crew from That's Incredible showed up in town to cover the gum alley, and pretty soon stores downtown all had bubblegum machines and the walls got covered.

I think Joanne sort of believed me when I told her about it, but the fear factor of imagining your four year old walking down an alley and plucking a piece of gum off the wall to pop into his mouth creates such a gag reflex that her imagination really couldn't take her any farther.

"It's pretty gross," I told her, "It smells kind of like minty juicy fruit and spit."

She responded by throwing up.

Both walls of the alley, ground to top, are covered with gum.