The Simple Anarchy of the Abandoned Shopping Cart

Pulled into the parking lot of the local supermarket emporium of fine price-gouged goods. 

I couldn’t help but notice the overabundance of under-corralled shopping carts. 

Shocked me to the core at that moment. How many there were. 

A roaming herd of buffalo traversing the open prairie had nothing on the number of rolling baskets that were there in my field of view. 

What had happened? 

Time was when I had considered returning carts to their corresponding round-up was the simplest form of self-governance. It’s the main idea this country, the USA, is founded upon. 

Any society irresponsible with its liberty, failing to ensure fellow citizens can sustain the system for civilization, should be wholly denied that liberty.

This occurrence shook me so that, once I had exited my vehicle, I scanned the lot for an attendant. Someone who was taking the upper hand to right the wrong and wrangle the baskets to restore order. 

As a brisk cold breeze enveloped my visage as it would in some vast Siberian wasteland, came the realization that no help was pending.

I was on my own. 

I took matters into my own hands. Started at the far end of the lot. A lonely cart was standing like a grazing wildebeest on the Serengeti. 

That was my target. 

Walking over to where it stood, something in my mind told me that this quest would turn out to be a waste of time. Hours it would take to complete what some my fellow irresponsible countrymen had willingly forsaken. 

It was then that I realised my standards would only punish me. No effect would be suffered by the elementary scofflaws that had opened my eyes. Raised my ire. 

That’s when the infernal anarchist that lives within me made its way forward in my thoughts at that moment. 

For years, I've nursed this quixotic fantasy about gauging the aerodynamic potential of a discarded shopping cart. 

Chariots of consumerism that litter our landscapes like monuments to unchecked capitalism. It's a perfect metaphor for our throwaway society. Here was my shot at literal, interpretive art.

Pure serendipity. 

I ran a visual assessment of my launch pad like a lookout before a Black Friday stampede. All clear. 

Dubbed my selected specimen "Cartzilla," figuring personalization adds a dash of whimsy to the impending chaos. 

Once assured Cartzilla wasn't rigged with some anti-theft GPS (paranoid not to alert a surveillance drone, you never know these days), I set about making my hallucinatory subconscious vision come to life.  

Mastering cart propulsion is an esoteric craft, honed not in gyms but in the fever dream of one of the overtaxed middle class. Me. 

With no simulators available (thanks, OSHA), I drew from a nocturnal vision. Sprinting buildup, hoisting Cartzilla aloft in a discus whirl, body twisting for peak angular momentum. 

Purely focused on the long awaited opportunity, my mind went blank. Grabbing the handlebar, I was amazed by how it flexed like a politician's spine. 

But hey, it turned out it juiced the trajectory. I executed a hammer throw worthy of the Highland Games.

The mid-flight clatter from Cartzilla was operatic. A cacophony of rattling basket, spinning wheels and mechanically-not-designed-for-this protest. Then a miracle happened! 

It self-stabilized just shy of impact. Bounced then skidded to a halt upright. No damage to speak of. Just a tidal wave of catharsis, purging the soul better than any overpriced therapy session.

Clocked it at a respectable thirty yards. Not bad for a low-trajectory shopping cart ordinance

Under what I had estimated, but in the arena of guerrilla performance art, that's a standing ovation.

I will say this. I don’t recommend cart-tossing to anyone unless you’ve had a steady series of dreams and visions over the last forty years about it. If you don’t have the instincts bred into you subconsciously, then you won’t be ready to do it. 

Leave the cart-tossing to the people obsessed by weird fucking shit. Don't try it in your own asphalt jungle.

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