New Bedford’s Most Bizarre Road Sighting Yet

What was suppose to be a normal every day routine red light turned into quite the spectacle.

Sunday afternoon, around 1:45 p.m.., I was sitting at the red light at the intersection of Mount Pleasant Street and Kings Highway in New Bedford when I witnessed something that might top my all-time list of bizarre local sightings.

Rolling up beside me was a moped; nothing unusual there, except this one had a man driving, a woman riding passenger, and behind them, hitched to the scooter, a makeshift wooden cart with two bicycle wheels. On top of that cart was a queen-size mattress.

A very used queen-size mattress by the look (and smell) of it.

A Mattress You Could Smell From the Street

I’m talking thick, double-pillow-top, stained-brown-on-the-surface kind of used. Even with my windows down for just a moment, I could smell the funk radiating from four feet away.

To their credit, it was strapped down securely, not just one of those “hand on top of the roof, I got this” situations. Honestly, the engineering here was kind of impressive. Two people, a full wooden cart, and a mattress that had clearly seen better decades, all being hauled by a tiny moped puttering down the city streets.

What's the worst that could happen?

A Balancing Act That Defied Physics

Was it on its way to the dump? Boy, I sure hope so.

At least they weren’t leaving it on the sidewalk, which, let’s be real, is a pretty common sight in the city. Regardless, the sheer physics of it all blew my mind. One wrong turn and that whole operation would have toppled like a game of Jenga.

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The scene reminded me of something you might see in a busy street market overseas, or maybe from a Boston pedicab, except instead of tourists riding in the back, it was just one very questionable mattress taking in the sights.

New Bedford Never Disappoints in Roadside Oddities

New Bedford has no shortage of unusual road moments. From scrappers with trucks piled sky-high to people hauling the most random cargo, but this one? This one takes the cake (a very smelly cake).

READ MORE: New Bedford Car Creep Will Send Shivers Down Your Spine

All that's left to say is, if this moped-mattress duo thought they could quietly roll through the city unnoticed, I can assure you, they stood out like a sore thumb.