About this episode

The episode explores a day in the life of a woman living in Lakewood, Colorado, highlighting her routine and the presence of government property in her environment.

Her eyes open at five twenty-eight. She lifts her head and switches the alarm off before it kicks on at five thirty. She’s up and moving. Chores to do. Coffee, dishwasher, shower, lunchbox. Their apartment is a one-bedroom in Lakewood, Colorado, on the west edge of Denver. Third floor. She starts the coffee maker and showers while it runs. On the refrigerator door, under a magnet, a printed listing for a two-bedroom on South Ammons Street. Four hundred ten thousand. Beneath the price, handwriting in blue ink: eighty-two thousand down. Below that a column of dates and smaller numbers, one for every month they’ve lived here. The paper has yellowed at one corner. She pours coffee into a steel travel mug, grabs her lunch, takes the stairs, and scrapes frost off the windshield with a plastic dustpan she keeps behind the seat. She drives west on Alameda with the defrost on high. At Kipling she turns north. On her right, Lakewood Park Tennis Center. On her left, a fence. Chain link, eight feet, three strands of barbed wire on top. It runs past the first stoplight. It runs past the second. There’s a gate with a guard shack and a yellow crossing arm, and a white sign that says United…

People in this episode

Host: Joel K. Douglas

Topics covered

• daily life
• government property
• personal narrative
• family
• society

Keywords

• Lakewood
• Colorado
• government
• daily routine
• personal story
• family
• society

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: United States Government

Places: Lakewood, Colorado, Denver

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