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.

Strange Things I Have Photographed in the Suburbs

In my work as an amateur naturalist, I continue to catalogue the oddities of that savage land known as Suburbia. Here is my latest collection of photographs snapped in the wilds of Southern Westchester.

Something old, something new, something borrowed, something thick and black and previously used by a burglar. 

This Mamaroneck shop features grand-daddies, infants, occasional flames, and one very very small roast turkey. 

So many people ignored this sign. So, so many naked people. What a clothing store!

Is it just me, or is this statue "shaking the dew off the lily"?

$2.00 additional for the large earwig.

"Don't look now, Mary, but there is a giant, grotesque ear with gnarly legs and toenails and shit walking behind you."

Spotted outside that corner bar that's been closed for 3 years now. The creature is fervently hoping it will become a wine/tapas lounge, rather than another dive.  

Speaking of dive bars, this animal spent way too long at the "Town House II"—an establishment that is strictly "teeth optional."

The poster warning of the dangers of marijuana was spotted in a high school health classroom in Mamaroneck. It has little blue testes. Look closely at the hand dangling by his side. Now, wait for it...wait for it...

Okay, NOW I need a stiff drink!

Query: MY HOUSE

Binxie Durbin

Weichert, Realtors

Larchmont, NY

 

Dear Ms. Durbin,

 

"They haven't done a thing to keep it up."

 

"What a disgrace! No curb appeal."

"That old dump should have been razed back in the 1890s."

 

That's what the neighbors mutter about 42 Terrace Lane. But what they don't know is that the house hides a secret. Behind the crumbling plaster, musty shag carpets, and hideous 1970s wood paneling, 42 Terrace Lane is bursting with potential. Yes, she has crickets in the basement and a poltergeist in the wainscoting, but when a new owner sinks approximately half a million dollars into her, she's going to be gorgeous.

 

A little down on her luck, 42 Terrace Lane is determined to make something of herself. They won't dare call her a "filthy eyesore" anymore. This time, she's going to have shiny granite countertops, not Nu-Econo-Brik. This time, she's going to have a porch that doesn't sag, and a back deck with a brand-new Weber gas grill, and there are going to be really good dinner parties with fine china in her dining room, damn it. If she can just get there before a potential owner's spike heel punches through the rotting wood on the stairs, she's golden.

My Victorian dystopian for adults and several children, MY HOUSE, is complete at 2,467 square feet. It’s like a cross between THE JONES’S HOUSE, MO 'N' JACK'S SPORTS BAR, and FOLSOM PRISON. Please let me know if you care to see any portion of it; I'd be happy to provide access to the front porch or foyer. I am open to suggestions for revision, including tearing off the back half of the house so that a little sunlight might get into the damp corners of the living room.

MY HOUSE is my second dwelling; MY FIRST HOUSE was sold to a nice couple from New Rochelle in 2008. I have other works on the property, including MY GARAGE and MY ROTTING STORAGE SHED WHICH PROBABLY CONTAINS SOME ANIMAL FAECES, which may also interest you.

Thank you for your time and consideration.