Walking On Asphalt

David Muniz may be homeless but he is not heartless. This past summer he trekked  from Greeley to Steamboat Springs, Colorado with nothing but a head filled with dreams and a shopping cart filled with scrap metal and old cheese. His journey helped raise awareness of the plight of the homeless, particularly the homeless pushing shopping carts on interstate highways.

Mr. Muniz travelled 187 miles in 11 days. The shopping cart – always there, always causing strain – came to symbolize the mortgage he hoped to have one day.

Just One Last Thing

Ever been in the checkout line and decided to throw one last thing into your shopping cart? The people at Alfa Romeo are hoping to capitalize on that impulse by offering their cars at select European supermarkets beginning this summer. It sure beats candy!

Up, Up and Away with Shopping Cart Repairman

The Asheville Citizen Times reports on a true hero – a traveling shopping cart repairman who does not let sub-zero temperatures freeze him out of his mission. Some say repairing shopping carts is a spiritual calling, akin to becoming a monk or bartender. Whatever brought Lorenzo Braxton to pursue his calling we salute his dedication!

This Cart is Ready for its Closeup

Cormac McCarthy’s novel “The Road” is a story of love, hope and armageddon. The film adaptation of the book arrives shortly, bringing audiences the chance to see the biggest surprise of the season – the lead role is played by a shopping cart. Viggo Mortensen plays a father trying to protect his son in a post-apocalyptic world. Kodi Smit-McPhee is the son choosing between the love of his father and the opportunity to be raised by bears. But it is the shopping cart, played by a shopping cart, that is the focus of the story. Using an artful mix of understatement and wheel squeaking we sense the emotions of the cart as it must lead the two humans down a bear highway, through a bear hamlet and over a bear pass. In one heart-wrenching scene the cart befriends a narcoleptic cub abandoned by its bear tribe. When the cart must choose between cub love and taking the father and son to safety the cart reluctantly continues the journey with its human charges, brushing the fur of the sleeping cub as it moves on.

For anyone looking for a holiday film with shopping carts, stark landscapes, facial hair and bears “The Road” delivers.

Working at the Cart Wash

A new system helps your shopping cart feel like four-wheeled princess by giving it a shower before letting it stroll down the aisle.

MIT Students Discover How to Get Credit for Slapping Together a Frankencart

Their peers persevere with projects helping send rockets to the moon and allowing disabled people to get out of the way quicker, but a special group of MIT students are collaborating on a project to stick a lawn mower engine on a shopping cart. The project has been dubbed LOLrioKart – honoring the intrepid Dr. Klaus Spaten von LOLrioKart, a scientist in the former East German Republic who first theorized about welding lawn machinery to shopping carts. The video below shoes a test run on the culmination of this work.

In Memoriam: David Carradine, Friend of the Shopping Cart

They were known on the street as the Silly Funny Goof Gang. But this puerile moniker cloaked a nefarious assemblage of ruffians who for years terrorized shopping carts on Chicago’s west side. It was early winter 2008, however, as they prepared for their annual Silly Funny Goof Gang Cart Kickaround, that their destructive reign was bitch-slapped into oblivion.

Enter David Carradine. In the last photo taken of the Silly Funny Goof Gang the members are shown giving their secret gang sign to the camera. In the background Mr. Carradine looks on. What followed was described by spectators as a blur of bright cotton and blood.

David Carradine was an unsung hero who vigilantly battled shopping cart abusers wherever they practiced their dark art. For years he walked the blacktop quietly dispensing justice to those who menaced our four wheel friends. He was a friend to the cart, The Center for Prevention of Shopping Cart Abuse salutes him.

A shopping cart abuser masquerading as a peasant leads a shopping cart to would-be doom. In the background David Carradine plays his song of peace moments before unleashing kung fu justice.

Blood on the Lot

The Blood Center of Central Texas has a new advertising campaign that taps into the profound guilt experienced by shopping cart abuse. As in medieval times redemption is offered in the form of blood-letting.

Shopping Carts, Swine Flu and You

A young child playfully licking a shopping cart handle.

What’s on your grocery list this week? Cereal? Bacon? Mr. Pibb? How about swine flu? Most shoppers don’t set out to participate in a pandemic. A few simple precautions can help keep your next trip to the grocery store happy, healthy and virus-free:

1. Do not clean or wipe down your shopping cart. This may sound counter-intuitive but the truth is shopping carts tend to retain only super germs. And by super we mean really good.
2. Encourage your children to lick shopping carts. It is a proven fact, children who lick shopping carts grow up to be more resistant to illness, more resistant to change, more resistant to not licking carts…in general just more resistant.
3. Load your cart with pork products. Firefighters know that the best method to fight a fire is to always start another one. You should know the best way to combat a pork virus is to fill your tummy with pig.
4. Shop in Mexico. Nobody knows more about swine flu than the people living with it. And if you want a good price on tortillas you can’t beat a good run south of the border.

Follow these few simple rules and instead of bringing home swine flu you will be bringing home the bacon!