There was a dead duck in the gutter. Drivers zipped passed it for more than week, ignoring it . After three days, it’s wing was in the middle of the road while the rest of it still lay in the gutter, and I probably would have closed me eyes to the corpse too if it wasn’t directly in my path. See, I bike to work, and that bike ride takes me along a street where there is no sidewalk or bike path. So for several mornings, I would hold my breath and hope that someone had finally taken responsibility and removed that duck.But no one did.The funny thing about Southern Californians is that they live in a land where public transportation is not often used by the majority of the population. Californians, L.A.-ians, can go through their entire lives without boarding a bus, train or anything. I have no idea how to use the bus system in Southern California, let alone my home city. I tend to drive to distant locations because the drive usually is as long as the train ride AND just as expensive. That’s why I drive, but, but the thing is that because so much of our lives occur in transit, Southern Californians are very good at treating life like they are constantly driving. Meaning, we only tend to see the road, what we’re focused on driving toward, rather than taking in our entire surroundings.That’s why it really didn’t surprise me that the duck was there for so long - on a very public street, in a commercial area, decomposing for all to see. And that’s really something that separates north L.A. from south L.A.; there tends to be more roadkill. I can’t even begin to tell you how many dead animals I’ve biked over this month. Yes, it is as pleasant as it sounds. In good old Orange County, animals stay on leashes or in purses. Up in the valleys, they tend to be a bit more feral.Anyway, I decided to be an American and clean up my city streets. The duck had to be removed, or I would have to find alternate bike routes to avoid it. But when I considered that the duck could be there till…..whenever, I knew someone had to step up to the plate; that someone would be me.But how does one remove a dead animal? I didn’t plan to take a shovel and do it myself. My elementary school education had cemented into my mind that tipping trash, pet feces or anything else down a storm drain just polluted the ocean. No, I would not only have to be a good citizen, I would have to be a good citizen that called upon my government to act. But, again, how does one do that?I zipped onto the internet highway and looked up the city hall’s website. After various searches and discoveries (government-sponsored tattoo removal and water-softener cleaning services), I discovered that my attempt to find a service for “dead animal” brought up results. Well, not exactly. I typed in “dead animal,” and the website directed me to the city’s Animal Care Department.Having had to dig through various layers of bureacracy to find quotes for articles, I prepared myself for this next ordeal: calling the Animal Care center and then having them direct me to another department; repeat process. I called, I was put on hold and listened to really awful elevator music for 20 minutes. Then a representative got on the line:Me: “Yes, I’m calling to see if you’re the right place to help me out.”Person: “Yes m’am, what seems to be the trouble.”Me: “There’s a dead duck on the road. It’s been there for days. I think it’s head is missing. It’s really gross.”Within minutes, the Animal Care representative had looked up the duck’s location, made the call a matter of public record and assured me that someone would get down there to dispose of the body. We said goodbye and hung up. I had this warm, fuzzy feeling; perhaps it was that patriotic pride that our president likes to talk about? I had done a little something to make our city a better place, and what do you know? When I left that afternoon, the streets were clean, and my little suburbia north of L.A. was as picture-perfect as it should be, once again.