I went into Stop & Shop to that sleeve of carts right inside the door. I pulled the end cart but it was stuck.
I pulled again with more force but it refused to let go. I yanked it furiously, rattling the other carts, but it was jammed beyond hope.
I spotted a lone cart near the bottle return machine. Whenever you see an exiled cart, it’s been shunned by the sleeve because of lameness, like an abandoned runt animal. This one had a front wheel that convulsed like that paint can shaker at Home Depot. I pushed it about a foot and learned the rear left wheel was locked too. I let it go and went back to that stubborn bastard at the end of the sleeve. I tugged a few times gently, as if to appease it and coax it from its hold.
Nothing.
I jerked at it chaotically.
Nothing.
A mother carrying her daughter was behind me watching.
I skulked over to the outcast cart in defeat. The mother reached inside the jammed cart, forced the trap door down that had interlocked it to the one in front of it, and gracefully pulled it out. She put her daughter in its seat and went inside.
As soon as I pushed my reject wagon, it made a hard left, ramming the bottle machine.
Navigating the aisles was not going to be easy.
I had to keep a strong right hand on it to keep it from pulling left and I was convinced the frantic front wheel would at any moment fire itself off the wagon. It was then I realized how customers ignore steering and cart etiquette while browsing the aisles. Nobody dutifully pilots their shopping cart; it’s just this rolling aimless cage in front of them that gets nudged along while they look at the shelves. The collision potential is high.
Knowing this, why would store managers stack a towering display of canned vegetables in an aisle?
I was keenly aware of it, maybe because I knew I had a vehicle capable of mass destruction, but that mother with her kid wasn’t.
She was coming down the aisle, cart aimed right at me, looking at the shelves. Her daughter was staring, kind of creepily, at me right in the eye waiting for the impact.
I white-knuckled the handle and lifted the back of the cart up off the locked rear wheel, forcing weight on the insane front wheel. This made the back of the cart wiggle in my hands.
Steering was impossible. I had no choice. To save myself from demolishing the tower of corn, I just stopped.
The mother sensed an aisle obstacle and swerved to my left stopping inches from the tower.
“Excuse me,” she said with a smile.
Her daughter held a demonic, emotionless gaze.
“Yeah,” I apologized, “I can’t really turn.”
“Maybe if you put the cart down?” she said with a tone that just breached the threshold of condescending.
“I’m holding it up because I have a bad rear wheel. It’s locked.”
“Can you back up?”
Her daughter scared me. She looked up at her mother with a cute smile but when she turned back to me her face went back to cold-blooded.
“Yeah, I guess, but can you go to my right instead?”
She became a little defiant.”I’m already kind of going this way.”
“That’s the problem,” I informed her, “I was staying to my right. You should too.”
“I’m shopping. Who cares what side I’m on?”
“Carts should stay to the right of oncoming carts. If everyone did that, we’d avoid this kind of thing.”
The daughter was now gauging the strength of my soul and how easily she could extract it.
“There’s food on both sides of the aisle though, and…”
“I know, so you let the oncoming cart pass-to the right- then you can cross over and shop. It’s like boats. You know what? shopping carts should follow boating rules.”
Holy water would sizzle if her daughter touched it. I’m surprised she turned her whole body to look at me and didn’t just spin her head around on her neck.
“Can I get past you please?”
“…and you know how boats give the right of way to smaller crafts? Those could be like the electric Jazzy carts with the handlebar baskets they have up front. Just let them go where they need, nautical courtesy. Do you think those things have horns? They should. ”
Tower of corn be damned, she was going around me.
I lifted the side of the cart, leaning it on two wheels, like it was passing gas, so she could make it by.
She scraped the corn and the display slowly rocked. We all froze and watched it, but I swear when Satan’s little helper looked at it, it stopped.
“Boating rules,” I continued as she went by, “ just like we’re in water. Hey, ever notice how much “aisle” is like “isle”?”
“Whatever,” she grumbled.
“Ahoy, matey!” I called with a friendly salute.
She ignored that and went on toward the registers. The demon seed leaned around her mother and stared back at me.
I thought about the crucifix necklace I got when I made communion.
I haven’t worn it since junior high.
I should find that thing.