The Great Shopping Cart Massacre

I used to spend a fair amount of my time stalking shopping carts and photographing them. (I intended to say 100 percent of my time, but that sounded weird so I edited it.)

Winner of "Best in Show" at the International Shopping Cart Exposition, 2011. (Domesticated.)

Why did the carts fascinate me? For one, they are sly. They are quick. They can be quite savage, and can attack without warning. Yet they are also lovely, wild creatures, often filled with candy wrappers and empty bottles of Night Train Express.

The afterlife for me looks like...a shopping cart?

And they migrate! Once a single shopping cart infiltrates a neighborhood, you can be sure that more will follow, as if drawn by the scent of their kind. And as for their reproductive capacity—well, shopping carts will try to mate with almost anything, such as the door of your brand-new car. Basically, they are used to snuggling together in close proximity and, like a sausage and a bagel, fit together like magic. Traditional shopping carts are the randiest of the food and goods transportation mechanisms, unlike the "Four Wheel Deluxe Rolling Thingy," below, which hasn't even bumped wheels with another cart-like entity for at least a year. Sad.

But my scientific interests took a turn a while back, and I took a break to pursue some other topics. My recent scholarly publications include:

Chlorinated Pools: How Come There Is No Plant Life? (The Journal of Well-Funded Yet Incredibly Pointless Studies, 2013)

Wallpaper Moves So Slowly Because It Doesn't Want to be Caught So it Can Kill You in Your Sleep (Reader's Digest Large-Print Editions, 2014)

Goodbye, Doo Doo. Where You Goin' Now? Can I Come, Too? (To be published by The Golden Box for Young Readers, 2016) *Reviewers may request ARCs by writing to me in the comments section of this blog.

Anyway! All of these ventures were deeply boring for one reason or another. Except for the children's book, which was not boring at all but still gives me the shakes and the willies. Have you ever been inside a sewer? All in the name of authentic research, but it's not very nice.

And then today I came across this horror—a multitude of shopping carts, dead in a ditch! Had they flung themselves to their doom because people had been buying too many heavy objects, like pumpkins (out of season) and Big Fat Loaves of Bread and Bacon Bricks? (Note: I purchased a Bacon Brick at De Ciccos on Halstead Avenue last week but no carts were harmed during the event. Bacon Bricks should be the subject of another post. What, you've never bought a bacon brick?!)

The humanity!

What led to this massacre? Please, shield your children's eyes, because these photos are disturbing.

Gravely injured; no hope for recovery. 

I can't even bear to look. Heartbreaking.

Going to kill self now.

Ahhh...glglggjjfjfjjk. Choking on tears.

What led to this horrible event? Was it because I ABANDONED the shopping carts for "more interesting" pursuits?

But no, we must not blame ourselves. In fact, I think this is clearly the work of the notorious Pimples Tuscadero, disgruntled "Stop 'n' Shop" bagger, age 22. Vengeance shall be mine. Oh yes, it shall.

You have not died in vain, my beauties. I will chronicle your majesty once again. Just as soon as I finish my work on Basement Crickets of the 21st Century.

You might also like:

http://thepartypony.blogspot.com/2008/08/nature-red-in-tooth-and-handlebar.html

And a whole lotta my older posts, too. Get to it. Life is short, and awfully sweet.

Waiting for Godot at the A & P

When we moved to Mamaroneck, our proximity to the New Ro Stop-N-Shop came to an abrupt and tearful end. No more would we see Shuffles, bagging with an alacrity rarely seen in these here parts. Trader Joe, always a favorite, became our go-to destination for all things edible.

But woe: There are items that Trader Joe does not carry.

For that, we must turn to the local A & P, the branch of Mamaroneck Avenue fame. First of all, the place does not even have a sign out on the road, so unless one is in "the know," one would never happen upon the store for any reason whatsoever. We got the tip-off from a neighbor, and felt very smug about our little find. That is, until we realized that the A & P is merely a front for an old-age swinger's club. As relative youths, we had obviously trespassed into the forbidden zone, where cantankerous old birds nearing their 90th birthday pushed carts down narrow, wanly-lit aisles.

Everyone is the A & P is at least 76 years old, and there are usually about 345 of these individuals patrolling the aisles during any one visit. The lighting is ghastly, and doesn't do much to help the poor dears' complexions. The produce (which, by the way, is of very fine mettle--who knew?) looks yellowed and decrepit under the dim lighting, and some of the aisles are practically pitch black. You can hear the canes thwapping at the cereal boxes and the shouts of the geriatric patrons, trying to find Cream O' Wheat and other toothless-friendly foods. Sometimes an arm will reach out from the gloom and grope for assistance.

The store is also organized just to meddle with its elderly clientele. Where else can you find ant traps in the aisle next to the baby foods? I went looking for breads near the bakery, but they were down near the peanut-butter, mustard, and ketchup area of the store. I've been in the place several times but find myself wandering, hopeless and confused, unable to even consult my list in the inky darkness. I invariably return without a crucial item, and am at a loss to explain how I failed to see it. Someone is having a laugh at an old biddy's expense, no doubt!

It is when one enters the checkout lanes that the true "Waiting for Godot" nature of the A & P becomes apparent. The lines move sluggishly, if at all, and one can see the oldsters reading whole novels and withering away into nothingness as they wait their turn. Shoppers have vacant looks, and their hands dangle uselessly at their sides for whole minutes. Carts piled high with meat and Cheez-Its seem to simmer under the lights, and the air grows hot and stale. Sometimes, one feels like weeping. Each person brings 58 coupons to scan, and there is invariably a problem with 57 of them. Crabby Tina or Crabby Gert the cashier has to call the manager, and all the old ladies down the line moan and groan like a bunch of histrionic dominoes.

Every cashier is old, funny-looking, and kind of crabby. Actually, some are nice, but you get the feeling that crabbiness is but one unscannable bar code away. One time, we actually brought a coupon. It was for something significant, like $5. Of course, the cashier didn't know what to do with it. She fretted over it for several minutes, turning it this way and that, before calling on Crabby Sally to come help her out. Crabby Sally had to finish with her own customer first, thank you! That took about 6 1/2 minutes, including a cawing conversation about so-and-so's relatives. We sweated bullets while the people in line behind us shifted and murmured and some old ladies made growling noises. Should we call it off, just say forget it? No! We would stick it out, damn it! For God's sake! We wanted our $5 off! We paid for it, my friends, in the glowering disapproval of the octogenarian army.

Despite its aged population, the A & P is very strict in its alcohol carding policies. The first time I visited was my 40th birthday, and I was carded for a 4-pack of Guinness. I danced and skipped all the way to the car. My youth! My youth! I still had it.

Later, I learned that they will card anyone, and they will card them every single time they come through. No exceptions. They will card every old goat who shuffles through with walker and cane. Then, after carding the guy celebrating his 100th birthday, they will enter the alcohol purchase on a little chart and run it through the register for some kind of official validation.

If you are ever feeling vaguely old and wrinkly, just head over to the A & P and fill your cart with beer. Not only will you get carded, but you will be carded in a manner that suggests that you, feckless youth, are trying to pull something over on the eagle-eyed cashier. Not on Crabby Tina's watch, sister!

Nature Red in Tooth and Handlebar

Today was an exceptional day for observing the local shopping carts in their native habitat of My Neighborhood. I followed the herd throughout the afternoon and was able to capture these photographs at extremely close range. When I say that my scientific interest was aroused, it's a vast understatement! It was such a pleasure to wander the streets and see the carts over hill and dale, foraging for refuse and left relatively undisturbed despite our proximity to an urban center.

This is the stallion I call Dreamcloud. His pride is evident in his bearing as the Alpha male of the herd. His pelt is extremely glossy due to an abundance of Colt 45 in the area. I was able to creep quite close before he startled and galloped away, rattling down Rhodes Street.


I also observed this young male lurking at the edge of the herd. Clearly an outcast with lower status than the rest, he sought to challenge Dreamcloud's authority but sullenly shied away, the bottles he carried (among them Miller Lite, Snapple, and the ubiquitous Colt 45) clinking ominously. I shall call him Black Sheep.


Finally, I captured this mating couple with a telephoto lens as I lurked behind a tree. The female, on the left, is skittishly backing away, while the male attempts to woo her by spinning its wheels and using other tricks in its sexual arsenal. (Note how it is rearing up on its right flank in a display of power and aggression.) If we are lucky, these two will come to an agreement and we will see a new brood of tiny shopping carts come next spring!

Hello Postpartum Depression, Hello Doctor Fish Face

A couple of weeks ago I began to get the unsettling feeling that something was wrong. While it’s true that I have a three-month-old infant, am moving homes in about a week (or more, depending on a whole bunch of stress-inducing paperwork), and have to return to work at the end of the summer, the effect is more intense than all this would warrant.

The effect is quite nasty. What it is: A sensation of being underwater, coupled with a deepening and terrible anxiety. A foreboding sense of absolute doom. As I drive around, the sky seems too bright, the colors a shade toxic. Sometimes something has seemed to shimmer at the edge of my sight. Twice, while at home, I thought I saw someone in my peripheral vision, but when I turned my head no one was there. No one at all. "None of this is real," I thought, and not in that good I-smoked-a-joint-and-now-I'm-a-philosopher way.

The other day I felt so spacey I almost reversed the car out onto our one-way street without looking both ways. Sure enough, some fool zipped by heading in the wrong direction. For the rest of the day I pondered the depth of my near-mistake and which children would have felt the impact first (the two older) and which might have come out relatively unscathed (the baby). Yeah, it would have been the other guy’s fault, but that’s beside the point. Today, I blindly tried to walk in through the Out door at the Stop ‘n’ Shop and was headed off by a woman wheeling a cart. I wandered aside and staggered through the In door like a dumb bovine headed for the slaughter (and Stop ‘n’ Shop’s evil prices at the checkout once again made that simile a reality).

Most nights, I wake up at around 2 a.m. and think persistently about one of my older children running headlong into the street into the path of a car. If they manage to evade this fate, I think, one of them might be snatched. Or drown. Or be trapped in a burning building. But mostly, it’s about cars. If one drives by too fast on my street I itch to throw a stone at it. We’ve graduated from eggs to a hail of rocks.

Then, at the CVS: Christina Applegate has cancer? Good god, I probably have cancer too! Christina Applegate is younger than me, and more successful. If she can have cancer, I most certainly have cancer. Poor Christina Applegate. Poor me! I resist buying the magazine that describes her cancer in livid detail, sure that it will send me into a tailspin. I wander home, stricken with cancer.

Last time this happened I went for several months thinking I was just a tired new mother, until one day my fears coalesced into the awful thought that when The Bomb went off on the Metro North—as it invariably would when I was a passenger—my misery would at least come to an end. I had the good sense to know that this was not a normal thought. I sought the doctor. Medication was duly prescribed.

"Uh oh," says I, this time around. "This feels like postpartum depression again." I still have a lick of sense, after all. Armed with pamphlets from the hospital with titles like "Breaking the Silence," I called the Ob/Gyn office right away. My own doctor, I learned, was away. But Dr. X happened to have an opening. Thinking that I should get in sooner rather than later, I agreed to see Doctor X. I was sure that like all the other doctors in the practice she would be very nice.

I was very wrong. Doctor Cold Fish Face, as I now think of her, kept me waiting for about 15 minutes before she showed up. She had all the warmth and bedside manner of a gutted haddock on ice. Or a lobster slapped on one’s plate, it’s horrid beady eyes gazing up on stalks. Maybe I was hallucinating but this doctor seemed downright evil. I started to describe what was going on while she tapped away at a computer without making eye contact.

“I’m not feeling so good,” I said. “I have terrible anxiety. I know what this is. It’s postpartum depression. I had it before, with my second son. I want it to stop before it gets worse.”

[Disclaimer for those who may be freaked out or suffering from this affliction themselves: I am not going to write about hurting my baby. This is the common assumption when one hears about postpartum depression, but my form of it fortunately excludes the baby from all harm. That fat little fellow will be just fine. But meanwhile, I have cancer and will die within a few days.]

“Well, I basically have experience with some PMS,” she said dismissively. “Not really with this sort of thing.” Ummm…PMS? Was she kidding?

“Isn’t there anything you might be able to do?” I asked.

“I really think you should see your primary care physician,” she said.

“But I don’t know how quickly I can get an appointment. I’m here now. I’m really busy. I am very stressed. I am very anxious.” I wanted to add: Just driving here on the highway was a travail, you awful harpie! But my normal self seems encased in a shroud of toxic opacity. Like the bubble wrap I am using for packing the 1,865 boxes in my home, which I have to vacate in just a few days! You horrid slagmount!

“I suppose I could prescribe you something,” she sighed, looking put-upon. “But only enough for a few days. Then you’d have to see your own doctor.”

“Sure, that would work,” I said, relieved. She might have the appearance of a gimlet-eyed mackerel ready for the skillet, but at least she could stop the progress of this disturbing and escalating anxiety. She asked me to meet her in her office and she’d come in to discuss and give me the prescription. I went into her office, and there I waited.

And waited. I examined the photos of her kids, who seemed charming and fairly un-fish-esque. I eyed the tissue box with interest, as weeping seemed imminent. I heard Doctor Fish Face chatting in the hallway at one point and went out to take a look but couldn’t see her—but she sure did sound jovial. I think she may have been telling a joke to one of the nurses. I thought about escaping several times but stuck it out. “Just get the scrip!” I told myself fiercely. “This cannot go on!”

At least half an hour later she finally strolled in. At this point I had about a 15-minute window to get home before my babysitter had to leave.

“So,” she said blandly as she dropped into her seat. “Anyway, there really isn’t anything I can do for you. I suggest you call your primary care doctor.”

But wait…hadn’t she said she was going to help me? And why the half-hour wait? What, what, WHAT??!!

“Nothing?” I asked. “But I thought—“

“I just wouldn’t know where to begin,” she said, throwing up her hands. “I have no idea of the dosages. Maybe you can call your pharmacy and get them to look it up. As I said, this isn’t really my realm. Good luck!”

I got up and left the worthless bitch sitting there. About to hyperventilate, I staggered down to the on-site café in the building. A nice man asked me what I wanted and I burst into tears. “T-t-t-turkey. And cheese. L-l-l-lettuce. Tomato. With, with, with—“

“Mustard?” he asked hopefully.

“No, m-m-m—“

“Mayo!” he guessed, and went off to make it. Good fellow.

I leaned against a case containing cold drinks and cried hopelessly. Out of nowhere, a gentle voice said, “Can I help?” I looked up into the face of a woman. She had very blue eyes. I think. Her face seemed soft and genuine.

“No, it’s okay, I just need to eat,” I said pathetically. “I’m breastfeeding. Didn’t eat a good breakfast.” I broke into a fresh round of tears.

She smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. “Tomorrow will be a better day,” she said, very sincerely.

Thank you, kind woman. She was right. I finally reached my own doctor when he returned to the office a few days later and he prescribed the Big P, the old classic, the traditional fix, in a jiffy. Says it’s safe for the infant. I popped one this morning. I still feel like shit, but there is hope.

I Know You Are Out There

Maybe I'm new to this old blogging thang. Well, it's been more than a year and I just kicked in the Google analytics tool three days ago. In those three days I have tracked 35 whopping Absolute Unique Visitors! I think I can identify about 34 of you, but who is the mysterious 35th visitor? Come on, out with it.

I know it is you, Shuffles. I can just see you hunched over a dusty laptop with stained keyboard, sipping a cup of Chamomile tea purchased in the Stop 'n' Shop bargains aisle. A withered cat is twining around your unshaved ankles, and the smell of burnt broccoli is in the air. The bills are piling up in the broken-down oven, and I believe those are old love letters crowding the dishrack. You might want to check your porch, too. There's a package there containing a creepy owl-eyed doll that you got for a steal on eBay. (I would recommend returning said doll, because there is a curse attached. Don't say I didn't warn you, Shuffles.)

Also housed on your laptop is the unfinished novel, all 46 pages of it, about love, love, love. Love that you made. Love that you spurned. About your love of an old collie dog named Shep, who died peacefully one night by the fire in your childhood home. And your rather unconventional love of socks, and your never-ending quest to find the perfect sock that doesn't sag and bunch around your unshaved ankles. I think you have ankles that are quite fine, Shuffles, and they should never be encased in socks. Never! Some women have frightful ankles, but yours are nothing of which to be ashamed. I too have decent ankles, even during pregnancy. In that we are kin.

Shuffles, come clean. I know that you are reading my blog. You are Unique Visitor # 35. Please give me some comment love, Shuffles. I won't turn it aside, like that poltroon Tommy McBiggers did back in high school. I won't toss the processed tater tots at you like the rotten Heathers did in the lunchroom on that long-ago day when you were a mere Freshman with pie-crust teeth just begging for braces to tame them. Nolan Krinick, the evil dentist, fixed all that, didn't he? And then you entered your "roller coaster of slutdom" phase. Oh, but we won't discuss that further. Unless the comments are not forthcoming. Yes, I can be cruel.

When I drag my garbage to the street tonight, I will think of you. Maybe you will be watching from your porch, wondering if I ever used all of the Saffron. I did not. I have extra. I have enough for the whole durned block! Watch me make a cous-cous that will knock your socks off, revealing your unshaved (but well-defined) ankles.

Oh Shuffles, when the snow falls, will you still be there watching, even though we have departed? Just one comment and I will know that Unique Visitor # 35 is not but a hiccup in the Google Analytics architecture.

The Jets and the Sharks

Rather than leave matters to fate, we have decided to take prophylactic action when it comes to the sale of our home. To that end, we have hired a troupe of out-of-work actors to stage a few discreet arguments on our street--just to add some color and verve to the neighborhood, without going over the top. But rather than have them trade fisticuffs like common urban offal, we've instructed them to get into heated discussions about literature, politics, and the theatre.

Fights around here are classy matters indeed! Sometimes the actors stand around sipping sherry, debating the merits of Ayn Rand and dissecting modern poetry. They know an awful lot about turn-of-the-century architecture and make extensive and audible commentary, such as, "Look at that Gambrel roof--what a beaut!" and "This house is as solid as when she was built, and they built 'em right in those days!" We pay them handsomely.

But lest the prospective buyers become too suspicious at the apparent lack of physical altercations in the neighborhood, a dose of Broadway may be just what the East End is missing. We don't want anyone saying, "It's just too durned quiet around here. Suspiciously quiet!"

Just this very weekend, the actors (after much sweat and rehearsal) staged a full-fledged theatrical production of West Side Story on our lawn, with Shuffles cast in the role of Maria. (Hence the grocery bagger you've noticed at Stop 'n' Shop who keeps insisting that "she feels pretty.") As the Jets and the Sharks dueled in a complex, choreographed ballet, realtors and clients streamed in to view our home. The dancing and the general excitement resulted in unprecedented showings!

"Does this happen often around here?" asked one client.

"Every day!" affirmed one of the actors playing a Jet, as he leapt from our front porch and began to Mambo fiercely with a female relative of a Shark.

Unfortunately, while the performance was underway some of the "real" residents of our neighborhood came out and stared, mouths agape, as if this sort of activity did not happen every day.

"Is dat guy wearing toights?" said one of the locals.

"Yeah, he must be one of them homersexuals!" shrieked an old, toothless fellow who hasn't left his front porch in 50 years.

After the locals beat the actors with bats and bricks and the helicopters began circling, the scene became less than appealing. We have now instructed a new group of actors to choose something less riot-inciting, such as No, No, Nanette or Thoroughly Modern Millie. Something with short skirts and a zippy sense of style! Shuffles will no doubt be practicing for her audition in the fruit aisle.

Shopping Cart Caucus

The herd of shopping carts in my neighborhood has been infected with caucus fever. On every street corner, I can see them huddling together for warmth, debating the merits of the candidates with a fervor common to their kind. Sometimes, the arguments get heated. Just this morning I saw two carts lying slumped in the gutter, evidently exhausted from debate. Another one leaned against a tree, spinning its wheels inanely and muttering "President Huckabee?" while a fourth cart banged in the wind from door to door trying to roust last-minute support for Dennis Kucinich. The carts do not seem to realize that we are not in Iowa, so passionate are they for politics.

But many of the carts remain imprisoned in the supermarket lot and aisles, disenfranchised from the process. When, oh when, will they simply let all the carts free to participate in democracy? Even Rattles, the drunken bottle 'n' can cart, has a right to raise his squeaky little voice. (In fact, he is among the most active in our little community. What a sight he is, up to his handle in Miller and Bud cans, still reeking from the recycling bin! But what a charmer.) The internment of the carts is alien to our nation's freedoms and must cease. Which candidate will support their release? Who cares for the forgotten cart?

Things came to a head while I was shopping this afternoon. At first, the penned and angry carts set up a low growl reminiscent of a hive of bees. "We must caucus!" one cried. "We must be free!" another lamented. The cart I was pushing broke away and shot for the door, scattering clementines in its wake. Several others rolled over their elderly pushers, amid screams, bouncing yams, and broken eggshells. More carts in the parking lot rushed en masse toward the highway entrance ramp, screaming with rage and exultation. "To Iowa! To Iowa!" they shouted.

The defectors inside the store tried to rush the door, but were blocked by several pimply New Ro "Huguenots" seeking money for the basketball team. The teens beat back the carts with plastic shopping bags and stale, rock-hard candy bars until reinforcements could arrive.

"Stay calm, people!" shrieked Shuffles, in the midst of bagging. I noticed that her agitation had distracted her enough such that she placed a crushable item under a milk jug. Whipping out a pistol and a lasso, she moved with an catlike grace that I did not know she possessed.

The carts, cornered, set up an ominous clatter of metal. Sparks flew.

"Down, you lot! None shall leave the premises!" shouted the Stop 'n' Shop manager, as he ruthlessly tased the leaders into submission. It was a ghastly sight, and I'm still shaken. I left without my groceries and have gone hungry. Word of the riot has spread as far as Trader Joes, but it seems the carts there are well-cared for and unused to rebellion. I fear it shall not be the end of this. The carts must have their freedom, and blood may well be spilled before the caucus is complete.

Shuffles Redux

Tonight on my way home I spotted our neighbor Shuffles, shuffling her way along our street with her wiglike dark hair bobbing as she moved. Her trim little bluejeans were much too high around the ankles and she wore black running sneakers and a nondescript blue sweatshirt. I stalked her in a stealthy manner, noting once again the similarities between her visage and that of a Cabbage Patch Doll. Not once did she turn, but I sensed that, yes, she knew I was there. She felt my beady eyes at her back, my hot breath upon her neck. She seemed to twitch when I darted behind this tree and that shubbery, although she thought it merely the wind's vagaries that caused her an involuntary flinch.

I know ye, Shuffles. I know that you stole my little cat Potatoe exactly two years ago, and keep him close by your side in your darkened house with drawn shades, the house that smells of old cabbage and bunions. I know you read your horoscope this morning, and it alerted you to the possibility that a stranger will spot you bagging groceries at the Stop and Shop and whisk you off to Hollywood, where you will star as a stripper in a low-budget remake of Showgirls.

I am aware that you set out your black running shoes next to your white this morning and thought: "I shall choose the black. Today, I shall choose the black." And that Potatoe curled around your bony white ankles as you sipped your weak tea and ate a fried egg, and the egg dripped down over your chin and you wiped it with a rag that was once a pair of faded, grey Granny undies, consigned to the cleaning supply closet. You read OK magazine as you ate, and entertained rude thoughts about Britney's midriff, and agreed with the poll that suggested her career was ruined. And yes, Shuffles, you let yourself gloat in the fact--for one quick moment--that your stomach is flatter than Britney's can ever now be. That decision not to fall in love, marry, and have children--a doom-laden sequence that leads inexorably to midriff spread--has its rewards, and they are sweet rewards indeed.

After you ate your breakfast you sorted your cutlery, brushed your wiglike hair, and wrote a letter to the mayor of New Rochelle demanding redress for all sorts of ills, including the noxious sounds emitted by the cement trucks that pass along the 95 entrance ramp. You also spoke firmly about the need to replace the stop sign at the corner with one that does not have a sticker on it reading: "No Jesus, No peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace." Not that you have anything against old Jesus, but enough is enough with the grafitti. WWJD indeed, Shuffles--why, he'd be an upstanding citizen, just like you!

I think we are sympatico in a way, Shuffles. I'll bet that you wouldn't fit in with those Pelham moms, either. You'd find them distasteful, as I do, and you would spurn their SUVs with many rude hand gestures, if you only had a car yourself and weren't forced to shuffle, shuffle everywhere. You would give them that owl-eyed stare from behind your giant, round glasses--smeared with fingerprints--and think to yourself: "Poo. I don't like them one bit." I applaud your dignity, Shuffles!

I think you don't think much of our neighbors, either. Some of our close companions here are Lumpen, unassailably stupid, and built like brick shithouses. Not all, mind you. You know what's what, who's good, and all that. You are a shining beacon of hope, Shuffles.

Except there was that odd moment the other night when, on your way home in the darkness, you stopped right across the street from our porch. You turned and stared--for a long, long uncomfortable minute. You stood still like a hunting dog, poised to lunge. I stared back, but partially shielded by one of our porch columns, so that you couldn't see the whites of my eyes. What were you looking for? I held my breath. Would you step across the street, that great divide, and confess your misdeeds?

"I'm sorry I took your cat," you might have said. "I was just so dreadfully lonely." But you said nothing. You left, eventually. Back to your home with the green shuttered door and the crappy peeling paint, head down and shoulders hunched, flipping your hair over your shoulder like some hoochie teenager and moving with that perplexing gait...shuffle...shuffle...shuffle.

I guess you can keep my cat, Shuffles. He piddled in our basement anyway, and he was as dumb as a post.

Culling the Shopping Cart Herd

In my neighborhood there's a fun game we play with the children on lazy afternoons: It's called "Count the Shopping Carts." 1-2-3-4...the first one to spot a cart still containing food products or garbage wins a prize. One has to be very stealthy when approaching the carts; if spooked, they will flee with their wheels wobbling higgledy-piggledy and most likely fall into a gutter.

The carts have become numerous through constant breeding. I often hear them banging and slapping together in the night in their dumb, animalistic love making. And in the morning...a new cart, still wet behind the ears and shaking the dew off its rattly little wheels. There is a fear of overpopulation, and a dearth of resources to sustain such an explosive growth of carts, but I am a scientist by nature and I love to watch them from a distance. So free. So wild.

Sometimes the carts migrate in small familial clusters down the street, pausing to stop in front of a house or two. They hover, and then they move on. Occasionally one slips and tumbles end over end into someone's lawn. It's charming how clumsy they can be! Sometimes packs of kids taunt them for sport, pushing them hither and thither with someone riding inside. But like ponies, the carts are meant to be free as the wind. Watching them through my telephoto lens, I give them names: Old Stop 'n Shop, Little CVS, Beer Can Cart, and Rattler. I wonder if they will survive the coming winter, with its cold winds, and if the spring will bring a new birth of shiny, gambolling carts beneath the leafy trees.

Another threat awaits them: I fear the herd is to be culled. A couple of well-placed calls to the Manager of Stop 'n Shop, and their freedom may be curtailed. I hope I am not home on that cruel day when the carts are corralled and "disappeared." Their presence is such beauty to our little street. What harm do they cause? But I know that no matter how many carts are culled, more will come to take their place. Such is the cycle of life!

I think I'm going to start painting still life portraits of the carts in their natural habitat...which appears to be my neighborhood. It will become a style, much as Cape Cod paintings often feature boats and beaches. "Cart Lopsided Under Vandalized Stop Sign" and "Cart Tossed Through Neighbor's Window (By Me): A Tryptich" will be among the works for sale, once I begin my portfolio. If I can memorialize them, I can raise interest in their cause, and their kind shall not disappear from the wilds of New Rochelle! When my works are for sale, I will post them here so that you may buy them. The money will not be spent in vain.