On Monday, I had to run a bunch of errands. We have only one car – which my husband now uses to commute for work, so that meant walking 40 minutes into town. No big deal. To kill as many birds with 1 stone, I brought along my beloved push-shopping cart. It looks like this:
Except mine is black. Now, this cart is something I used w/ regularity in Philly. You see them everywhere and people never give them a second look, ever.
WELL. LET ME TELL YOU FOLKS. After pushing my trusty black cart into town and back this past Monday, I have deduced that these carts are NOT – I repeat NOT – used here in Portland, except by the homeless. Rather than treat me like the environmentally conscious, DIY type I’d imagined myself to be:
To the majority of people, I apparently looked more like:
WHAT THE HELL?? For a city that’s supposedly GREEN in oh so many ways, these Portland folks were downright surly towards me & the cart. Like that a-hole in the main post office. YEAH B*TCH, I AM TALKING TO YOU, you snooty-faced weasel. How DARE you SCOWL at me and my cart, looking us up and down, when we turned to smile and say hello to you. Didn’t your momma ever warn you about your face freezing like that?? You KNOW it’s cold enough here for that to happen. AND YOU. YOU SMARMY BALDING GIT, with your ugly suit and greasy hair. If ONLY you could have read my mind when you gave me that fish-lipped smirk. OH YES.
It is obvious that some of the uptight jerkwads residing here in Portland have never seen a red-blooded woman pushing her overpriced whole foods groceries home in a folding cart EVER. I will not comment on the size of their wieners, but I should. Because the rest of them is SMALL. It is narrow-minded and childish to treat anyone with contempt, simply for doing what they need to do. Me and the cart – we are above that. So the next time we go shopping in town, you uppity lot better WATCH OUT. I have an airhorn, and I know how to use it.
you should tie a bunch of tin cans to the back…that will really get them talking.
I suppose affixing flame-design placards to the sides of the cart wouldn’t help your cause, but I can’t stop thinking about them. Or maybe that aggressive-shark-head-in-profile that was popular on WWII fighter planes? Definitely not. But there must be some solution…
*cower*
I shall never scoff at a carter again.
You need a snarky sign on the cart 🙂 will work for food LOL
at least you did not choke anyone or run them over with said cart! we still love you.
maybe tinsel, sparkly streamers for the handle? you need a bike with a wicker basket….and you can strap a milk carton on the rear fender for your shopping.
Awww… to quote “Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse:”
“Today was a difficult day.
Tomorrow will be better.”
If you keep using that cart, I bet you will start a trend of cart-using Portlanders.
Keep at it…it is good exercise too.
[clapping]
They don’t KNOW with whom they are messing!!! (And they also don’t know with whom they could be building an awesome friendship with. More the fool they.)
Work the airhorn! You are not a conformist, you are not afraid, and you are DEFINITELY from Philly.
I agree with CWG…a rocking bike would be awesome!
Do what Queen Boadicea did. She fitted swords to the axles, projecting outwards, so that as the wheels turned, the swords also turned, and she could cut a swathe of recalcitrant enemies to knee-height….in your case that would be shin-height…..worth a try!
THANK YOU MY FRIENDS!!! For supporting me in my time of need. For getting my back. For not assuming I live in the dumpster behind the hannaford simply b/c I am pushing a shopping cart (and may or may not have had bird crap on my shirt and/or in my hair) My TRUE friends!! How I love thee! xoxoxo
Sue – LOL what a mental picture..
Panny babe – I am thinking of constructing advertisements for the outside of the cart – like those crazy ass car wraps you see sometimes. I could advertise really expensive sneakers for instance – perhaps Nike or New Balance or Adidas would give me a free pair, to enhance the whole thing. And maybe a new outfit. But I am not that into spandex. really.
Yes, you heard me Bouncy. Air horn.
Thank you Connie my love. I am thinking – in case I do not go for the ads – of constructing a huge placard with my RANT OF THE DAY. Much like the street preachers you see at the seashore – with their REPENT signs. Only mine will be less coherent. And I will wear my most mismatched, holey and decrepit jeans and sweatshirt. And I will DEFINITELY bring Kiwi. This town will never be the same.
Curly, I think the bike is a good idea – but I need a larger rack on the back, with a super-sized insulated box so I can use it to deliver my sticky buns when I’m not out shopping. Perhaps you could design it for me? PS: Lose the tinsel decorations, but make sure you leave a space for the air horn on the handle bars.
Oh my lovely Laura – you KNOW I do not give up that easily. I have vowed to John to use the cart weekly until people grow so accustomed to me I fade into the brick – or as is the case here, clapboard.
MTAE, YES! Yes, it is.
Hayden, I am 100% Philly – no denying it. Thank you for your steadfast friendship and support. AND BACK UP AIR HORN!!!
Dear IP, what a BRILLIANTLY barbaric IDEA! No more smirking at ME when you’re wailing footless on the sidewalk. Wait..