| Ballad
of a Stray Shopping Cart |
A
summer rerun -- originally posted 02.25.06
It
was on a cold winter's day when the shopping cart
appeared on the lawn in front of my house. It appeared
as if by magic, but of course no magic was involved.
It was simply abandoned there by an asshole. I know
it was an asshole because who but an asshole would
abandon a shopping cart in front of someone's house?
I noticed the shopping cart that evening as I rounded
the corner on my drive home from the train station.
I didn't think much about it, though, because how
much time do you usually devote to thinking about
shopping carts when you're not, you know, out shopping?
The next morning, when I went to get the paper off
the front stoop, I noticed that the shopping cart
was still there. It had not moved during the night.
Not one inch.
It
was still there that evening as I returned home, and
the following morning as I got the newspaper again.
By then I suppose I was harboring a naive notion that
the asshole who had abandoned it on the lawn in front
of my house might come back and get it for some inexplicable
reason. Or that some shopping cart bounty hunter might
spot it and haul it away in the back of his pickup
truck along with other shopping carts abandoned by
other assholes. Or that some juvenile delinquent ditching
school might take it for a joy ride or something.
After
a few days it became apparent that the shopping cart
wasn't going anywhere. It began to gnaw at me, to
taunt me. Suddenly, it was no longer just an abandoned
shopping cart on the lawn in front of my house, it
was a metaphor for all that has gone wrong with this
country -- the breakdown of civic responsibility,
the promotion of personal convenience over the greater
good, assholism over humanism.
I
thought about sneaking out late at night and abandoning
it on the lawn in front of someone else's house. But
then I would be no better than the asshole who abandoned
it in front of my house. I thought about moving it
into the alley because scavengers in beat-up trucks
frequently drive through there and pick up all manner
of discarded things. But that was no better than leaving
it in front of somebody's house.
Early
one Saturday morning about a week later I decided
I couldn't take it anymore, so I put on some grubby
sweats. I was going to push that fucking shopping
cart back to the supermarket where it belonged.
In
the pantheon of all human activity I reckon returning
shopping carts is very low on the priority list. I
mean, just look around the parking lot of a shopping
center, how people just leave their shopping carts
all over the damn place. On busy days it's like driving
through an obstacle course. Of course, I'm not saying
that returning shopping carts would solve anything.
But it seems to me that if we can't even do the small
shit, how are we going to solve the big shit?
Anyway,
I set off with the shopping cart for the supermarket
about a mile away. I hopped on the back of it and
rode it down a little hill to a normally busy boulevard
which was practically deserted because it was so early
on a Saturday morning. With the hood of my sweatshirt
pulled over my head, I might've been the Unabomber
pushing a shopping cart along the street. The only
sound was its rattle. Along the way, I came across
a couple more abandoned shopping carts, so I pushed
them all together and took them back too.
I
have to admit that when I finally dumped those shopping
carts off at the supermarket, I didn't feel like I
had accomplished anything. A couple of shopping carts
were returned, big deal. I doubt my standing as a
human, or even a citizen, rose one iota. I suppose
there was a possibility that someone in the neighborhood
noticed that the shopping cart was no longer on the
lawn in front of my house -- that it had disappeared
as if by magic. But of course, no magic was involved
at all.
Posted
06.25.08|
» The
Reverse Grafitti Project
|
