Strapped to the carapace of a decapitated Michigan Blinker, the death of this lone survivor of a local Steve and Barry’s wobble seems to have been part of a cult ritual of some kind.     Many primitive cultures believe that they can absorb the strengths and skills of shopping carts through bizarre rites and practices that often leave carts dead or, in some cases, sterilized and unable to enjoy sex.     As the local Steve and Barry’s closed their doors forever, the far-ranging hunter carts were permanently cut off from their wobbles. Oftentimes, these fierce hunters can fend for themselves for a time. But even tenacious fighters such as this one eventually need to sleep, and without the protection of his wobble that is most likely when this fellow was taken by his eventual killers.     I personally hope his end was quick, and perhaps he never even awoke to find himself in such an unnatural position.     An upside down cart is a frightened cart, akin to you or I in a straight jacket; worse, their circulatory system is not built to work properly upside down and prolonged exposure to such a harsh stress position can cause acute castoroma*, the squeaks**, rotational abruptness, blindness and catatonic vomiting.     While there is currently no law against the cruel treatment of carts, there are any number of outreach campaigns that seek to increase public awareness of their plight. Write your local congressman or seek out a local chapter of a preservation league such as Cart Fanciers or Pull Left.

* casteroma is an oncological condition where lumps of chewing gum build up on the surface of the wheels. If allowed to metastasize, the castor may completely freeze up, which results in the always-fatal “drags”.
** the squeaks is a disease of the axels where an afflicted cart generates a harsh squeaking noise which increases in volume as he or she increases pace. As this usually alerts prey to their presence, it dooms the cart to a slow death by starvation.

    Only feet from a rich source of food, this Crowleys VC Strider succumbs to the elements and slowly converts its stomach contents to dried leaves, a natural process which is used by many arborists for reforestation in brownfield environments.

    On a bright morning early in the fall of 2007, I chanced upon this shopping cart while I was driving to work.
    His markings identified him to my experienced eyes as a member of a Crowley’s Value City wobble*.

    Probably the poor thing had been spooked by something, and quite possibly had been terrorized by a UBM.

    What was certain from the unsteady casters and thinning PVC of his torso was that this poor adolescent male was starving.
    I calmed him down by stroking his muzzle and quietly calling for assistance on aisle 12.

    Having gained his trust, I lead the fellow–whom I’d now taken to calling “Screechy” due to his lack of lubrication–to a meager store of food I’d kept in the trunk of my car for just such an occasion.

    Screechy greedily accepted the plastic deposit bottles and grew a bit more playful and alert.
    Since I was at work, and my company has no facilities adequate to house such a large cart safely, I called a local chapter of Cart Fancier’s to see if I couldn’t locate Screechy’s wobble immediately.

    Shortly, a pleasant Fancier named Martin informed me that the most likely home for Screechy was across the street at the Universal Mall Value City, where a very large wobble had been under a bit of stress lately due to impending closure of their native habitat for economic reasons.

    With current economic circumstances, loss of natural habitat is an increasingly disheartening problem for the Detroit area wobbles. And while I sympathized with the plight of such, it really is not my place to intervene in such matters. I choose, instead, to make my donations to preservation leagues such as Cart Fanciers and Pull Left!; only by pooling our resources can conservationists like myself hope to make a difference to the wobbles of carts like Screechy.

    So perhaps the wobble will someday die off, along with Screechy. But until then, his place is at home in Value City. So I carefully lead him across the Dequindre motorist thoroughfare and released him within cartsight of Value City. Here is my last photo of him as he spotted his friends and began to sprint homewards.

    Goodbye, Screechy. And good luck. I wonder how he’s doing now?

* A group of birds is a flock, a group of cows is a herd and a group of carts is a wobble. Look it up!