Wal-Mart Cart Pushers Auxiliary

I am a charter member of the Wal-Mart Cart Pushers Auxiliary. We don’t have regular meetings – mostly because I am the only one in attendance. Once, I attended a “real” meeting, but it was still pretty irregular. It was just me and one other person. I didn’t catch his name, but he was very passionate about his membership.

The meeting took place one Saturday afternoon in the Wal-Mart parking lot. After I finished transferring my groceries from the cart into the trunk of my car, I pushed my cart toward the cart corral. That’s when the meeting began.

The first item on the agenda was “Straightening of the Carts.” Before I could place my cart in the corral properly, I had to rearrange the carts left there by non-members. If the corral contains only a few carts, the meeting is fairly short. On this day, carts were at all angles, inside and outside the corral. This was going to be a long meeting.

As I wrestled with tangled carts, Cart Man appeared of the blue. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. I hadn’t sent out a memo about this meeting, but there he was, a young Native American with long hair, grabbing carts and yanking them apart with gusto, shoving them into the corral with a great deal of . . . um . . . strength. The meeting seemed to be progressing nicely, but I felt some discussion of the matter at hand would be appropriate since that’s what people do at meetings – discuss things.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if people would put their carts up?” I offered.

“@#4% people don’t care a *&$% about doing what’s right. They don’t give a %+#^@, the #$*@@&!”

Okay, then. This meeting had definitely been called to order.

He made a few more disparaging comments about human nature, which I can’t remember, nor would I have enough symbols on my keyboard to write. I must have mumbled a few words of agreement. That was the polite thing to do, and it helped me close my mouth which had dropped open in awe of his extensive vocabulary.

The meeting was adjourned as quickly as it had begun. Cart Man disappeared in a cloud of invective.

That was the last (and only) meeting of the Wal-Mart Cart Pushers Auxiliary at which there was a quorum. Mostly, I straighten the carts alone, but I always look over my shoulder to see if anyone will join me. I like to think that young man has meetings of his own, cleaning up the world, one cart at a time.