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!

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.

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.

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!