Image via YouTube
It's old. It's turquoise. It's Portland's beloved PDX airport carpet.
The Huffington Post recently spotted a social media hubbub taking place over a bunch of carpet that will soon be replaced at Portland International Airport.
Of course most of us outside the city were caught unaware that such a wide swath of inanimate object could be so widely adored, but that seems to be the case according to images like the following, which comes from Oregonian Cameron Whitten:
And here is a rather meta tweet that illustrates how far people have gone to show their love for the carpet that can now be seen not only in t-shirt form but on available socks as well.
The New York Times looked a bit closer at the peculiar manner the city's travelers have embraced the wildly recognizable carpet: "The 25-year-old teal carpet has gained Internet fame in the past few years, with several social media accounts dedicated to it and more than 20,000 pictures posted to the #pdxcarpet Instagram hashtag."
But, as the report reminds, the carpet's days are numbered, because the airport is set to replace the carpet in "mid-January," hoping to finish the makeover by the end of the year.
Like a soon-to-be-demolished stadium selling off seats, some are keen on making some cash from the adoration.
PRI.org points to what we have to assume is a fairly popular online store, which has pillows, posters and more items that feature the iconic color scheme and design that has festooned so may social media blasts and pictures over the years.
The Oregonian's Joseph Rose has a lighthearted look at what you might get if you happen to luck out and receive an actual piece of carpet:
As Rose states, the carpet has seen better days. Since it was installed in 1987, an estimated 300 million travelers have walked and spilled all over this carpet.
OregonLive.com even has a photographic breakdown of the more historic moments taking place during the carpet's tenure.
All of this is a longwinded way to say that Portland flyers have a decades-long love affair with carpet the rest of us would normally ignore.
As we all know, however, one city's tacky décor is another's prized treasure.
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