Presque Isle has a new sport: cart wrangling in the Walmart lot. On a busy day, the wranglers are able to corral and bring back these wire bound skeletons. It’s impressive to watch as 50-plus carts are roped up and guided back to their stalls.
Shopping carts, or alternatively, loot wagons, are the bane of the modern shopper. For a brainless collection of wires, the carts have minds of their own. Toss in a sloping parking lot and diverted attention, and the hilarity begins.
First, there is the freak-out skedaddle move. Load up the cart with enough stuff to sink a battleship and push it out to the cart located at the top of the lot. Dance a jig trying to find the remote door lock. Brace the cart against the neighboring jalopy. Turn away — and the jalopy pulls away.
The cart, sensing a bit of freedom, begins to roll downhill. And it’s off to the races as the cart careens like a drunken sailor in a pinball machine. Then people cry “Uh-oh!” and skedaddle after it, drag it back to the car and proceed to empty the contents into the vehicle.
Now, it’s time to mind your manners. Return the cart to a cart corral, where all good shoppers place their carts.
Then it’s time for the wagon wranglers. Pulling along a contraption with a blinking light, the wrestlers line up the carts, throw on a rope to keep them in line, and make a many-segmented worm. Dodging cars, trucks, customers and fumes, they drag the wired boxes on wheels back to the stables. Fifty carts, now docile, pushed around, lined up, then shoved into the barn ready for the next go-around.
The wranglers win again, having done a great job of dealing with brainless beasts. Give them a wave of thanks for the effort.
There is one sour note, though: the store could gain several more handicapped-accessible parking spaces if they were to move the cart corrals close to the building, one space to the east. As it stands now, the structures take away two of those designated parking spaces. That’s another item on the code enforcement list.
Orpheus Allison is a photojournalist living in The County who graduated from UMPI and earned a master of liberal arts degree from the University of North Carolina. He began his journalism career at WAGM television, later working in many different areas of the US. After 20 years of television he changed careers and taught in China and Korea.
