Truck Loses 120 Containers of Cheese Balls on the 105, Drivers Describe 'A Very Salty Situation'

LYNWOOD, CALIFORNIA — At 5:03 p.m. on Tuesday, a pickup truck on the 105 Freeway lost a pallet of cheese balls, and the westbound carpool lane became, for the next several hours, the most important place in the Los Angeles basin.

About 120 containers of the cheese-and-crisps snack came loose just west of the Long Beach Boulevard onramp, and the containers — being containers, and being plastic, and being, in the words of one driver who stopped to look, “very round” — did what containers do on a freeway at rush hour: they went everywhere. Some stopped in the lane. Some went into the median. One, per a dashcam clip that has been viewed a number of times, rolled to a stop at the exact center of the shoulder and sat there, “looking,” per the dashcam’s owner, “like it had made a decision.”

The California Highway Patrol blocked the carpool lane while a crew swept the lane, and the sweep, by all accounts, was a sweep. The crew had a broom. The crew had a bucket. The crew had, at one point, a vacuum, which was then put down, because the vacuum, per a CHP officer who watched, “was not having a good day.” The containers were collected, the lane reopened, and the freeway, which had been a freeway, was a freeway again.

The drivers on the shoulder, which is to say the witnesses, were unanimous about the scene and split on everything else. A 26-year-old who works in digital marketing, speaking from the shoulder with a container in her hand, said the first thing out of her mouth was “oh no,” and the second thing was “oh yes,” and she has since said she is “not going to rank those.” A 54-year-old trucker, who had been doing the 105 for thirty-one years, said he had seen everything — a bear, a cow, a man in a full dinosaur costume — and said the cheese balls were “different,” and when pressed on how, said “different.”

The one who had the decision was the container itself, and it had made it, per the dashcam, with “a lot of confidence.” The container, which is not named but has been referred to since as “the one,” rolled approximately forty feet, per an estimate, came to rest in the middle of the shoulder, and stayed there for the duration of the cleanup, at which point it was picked up, per the CHP, “like the rest.” The container has not commented on its decision, which is appropriate.

The snack company, which makes the cheese balls and was reached for comment, said the containers are “tested for impact,” and that the spill was “an isolated incident involving a single pallet,” and that the company “has always been, and will continue to be, committed to the cheese ball.” The company did not, when asked, comment on the decision the one made, and the company is, on the record, “not going to rank those” either, which is, by the count, the same thing the 26-year-old said, and the 26-year-old and the company are, as of this writing, in the same lane.

At press time, the 105 was flowing, the shoulder was clear, and the broom was, per the crew, “in the truck,” where brooms go. A CHP officer, speaking from the shoulder as the last of the containers were loaded, said the freeway had “seen a lot,” and that the cheese balls, in his experience, were “the first to make it through a lane closure without a scratch,” which is, by the count, a record, and a record the freeway, which does not keep records, is not going to keep.