The Grocery Cart Saga

So last Sunday morning I'm sitting on my front porch reading, and I see a woman walking down the street with a grocery cart full of groceries. That much isn't really remarkable - there is a Smith's just up the street a few blocks, and it is pretty much the only grocery store in the neighborhood. I often see people walking with grocery carts. And these are not homeless people, they are people living in $500k homes who walk because its healthy and environmentally friendly and because in Salt Lake in July, your car turns into an oven capable of melting your skin off when in a parking lot for more than, say, 5 minutes.

So anyway. No big deal, cute girl pushing her groceries home on a Sunday morning - I just noticed because the cart was clattering over the sidewalk and my dog wanted to run out after her. She saw me on my porch, gave me a smile, I gave her the up-nod, she walks on.

Fast-forward to later that afternoon. I am again outside on the porch, lying on my front-porch-couch (which I LOVE, but that's another story), chatting on the phone. Grocery cart girl walks past my house again, heading back towards the store with her cart, which is not empty, but I can't tell what's in there. [Side Note: My house is on a corner in the Avenues which, for my non-Utah friends, is a part of town nestled in the foothills of the Wasatch, so all of the streets head north and uphill. North of my house, the street becomes pretty steep for about 3 blocks before you get to the grocery store.] So she stops at the corner in front of my house, pulls a pillow and a sleeping bag (??) and her purse out of the grocery cart, and parks the cart in the corner of my front yard. And continues walking up the street, towards the grocery store.

Ok, so where do I begin on the list of things that are a wee bit askew in this scenario? First and most importantly, who just deposits a grocery cart in someone else's front yard? Secondly, this girl is in her mid-twenties, in a very active yoga-type outfit, and very much in great shape. She could easily push that cart up the hill to the grocery store. Especially since she was clearly still heading in the direction of the grocery store. But, what? Is she in too much of a hurry to get to her sleepover? What is she doing with a pillow and huge, down-filled sleeping bag in JULY? It is insanely hot here! Its heat-stroke hot, lose-your-mind hot, crank-up-the-air-conditioner-and-lay-naked-on-top-of-your-covers hot, take-a-cold-shower hot, don't-cook-food-on-the-stove hot. Just watching her tote that down sleeping bag up the street at 3:00 in the fucking hot afternoon nearly made me pass out.

My friend on the phone urges me to go yell at her to get her cart out of my yard. But at this point she has crossed the street, I don't have any shoes on, I don't have a bra on under my threadbare tanktop, and there's no way I'm chasing this girl down all barefoot and jiggly-boobed to confront her about a grocery cart. I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt more often than I probably should anyway, so I just figured she'd come back and get it when she had the time or the energy to push it back up to the store.

Wrong.

Monday morning - the grocery cart is still there.

Monday after work - still there.

Tuesday morning - still there, looking lonely. I'm starting to feel bad for the poor thing.

Tuesday after work - yep, still there.

At this point, I begin contemplating pushing the damn thing back to the store myself, except that in the past two weeks I've pushed two other grocery carts that were left in my yard back to the store, and now I just refuse on principle. And I want to see how long it will take anyone other than me to do something about it.

And then Wednesday morning, I leave for work and:

CART LOVE! This made me pretty happy. I mean, not only does the lonely grocery cart get a companion, but the whole thing is just vastly entertaining to me. I mean, who just leaves a grocery cart in someone's front yard? And then, who, while pushing their own cart back to the store, sees that one and thinks, "yeah, ok, this is a good idea, this is what we're doing now I guess," and leaves a second one??? I mean really, what the hell?

I relayed the entire story to my mother, who was OUTRAGED and went on and on saying that's just not ok and you should call Smith's and tell them to do something about this and tell them to come and get their carts! and Who would DO such a thing? I just can't BELIEVE it! And, my favorite: Michelle, are you taking care of the lawn? Is it looking shabby? I mean, if you're not taking care of the yard, then other people will just assume no one cares about the property and that it is ok to leave trash or grocery carts or whatever else they please in your yard!

I frequently ignore my mother's suggestions, and this was no exception. I just wanted to see where this was going, how much longer it would take for anyone to do anything. I just had this feeling that there was more to the cart story. My friend Daniel, who lives in Manhattan, said that pretty soon my carts-in-love would reproduce, that I needed to put up a sign or something, because people are lazy assholes and once they see that other lazy assholes have started a lazy asshole trend, they will follow suit, and that before I knew it I would have a whole colony of grocery carts in the yard. I contemplate making a sign that says "Please take us home" and sticking in or on the carts, but end up screwing around all evening and forgetting.

Thursday morning - both carts still there.

Thursday after work - still chillin in the yard.

Thursday night I need to run to the store, and for probably the first time since I've lived in this house, I decide to drive. Its only four blocks, but I need milk and laundry detergent and other heavy shit that I don't feel like lugging home and its hot as balls outside. I even feel guilty, thinking I should walk and take at least one of the carts back to the store. But I hated to separate them, they looked so happy together. So I'm gone for about 30 minutes, and I get home and find:

LOVE CHILD! Oh yes, the carts-in-love had a little cart baby! I mean come on, how fucking hilarious is this? Not only did a third individual decide to be a lazy ass and leave a third grocery cart in my front yard, but it is even one of those little half-size baby carts!

Its just too perfect.

At this point, I decide to do zero about the cart family because I love them. I'm growing attached. They make me laugh, out loud, every time I pass them. And they look cute. I was going to try and find one of Elise's old baby bonnets and put it on the cart baby this past weekend, but when I came home from work on Friday, the whole family was gone.

It was fun while it lasted anyway.