B.A.L.L.S.: The lonely abandoned grocery cart
Bitching about Life in London and Society is a weekly column that attempts to delve into the smaller irritations in our society.
Issue #2:
Those that leave shopping carts in parking lots instead of in designated sheltered areas.
Background:
I am a Jinsheng, chrome plated, galvanized wire mesh-shopping cart. I was made in China by an automated process that spot welds high grade galvanized steel wire together. I am then chrome plated, polished, accessorized with four rubber wheels, a plastic handle and various other bits of plastic and metal fasteners. I hold around 110 kg of stuff and I cost $125 Canadian. I carry your groceries around a grocery store, mostly, sometimes I carry a bunch of empty bottles, scattered bags, discarded quilts, stuffed animals and an assortment of jingly things found in local dumpsters. To some I am a car, a suitcase, a wagon or left strewn about the city, often outside apartment buildings in a cold jumble of carts, left behind while the procurer rides those musty, brown carpet elevators with cigarette burns on the buttons.
Others treat me with a bit more care; I am only left alone beside empty parking spaces. Abandoned by middle-aged women beside young cars instead of being transported to a nice sheltered area with my friends. I realize the difficulty in rolling me the five or 10 feet to the nearest shelter! It does make sense to leave me in the middle of a parking lot, taking up parking space, freezing alone atop the churning slush, cigarette butts, and discarded grocery receipts. I understand! You are far too busy in life to worry about anybody else. It makes perfect sense! In fact, I put forward that all of my kind are left abandoned in parking lots, rusting, cold, bloated and wheel stuck slush bound. A mere symbol of the aging Canadian populous that leaves me to another's whim. Thank you in advance middle- aged woman, I would cry if I had an eye.
The interviews:
These were a bit tough to conduct actually - imagine a busy shopping business type of scratchy nylon, half heel, sashed middle-aged woman being approached in a cold parking lot as she is closing the door to her car. As much as I wanted to, I didn't want to intimidate anybody. So I observed this process over a matter of time to see if I could deduce a pattern: Hence the “middle-aged Canadian,” mostly female in this case.
What I did discern was a sense of entitlement.
Interview one:
Although visibly put off by my query, she did have it in her to answer honestly — “They have a guy that collects these,” and looked at me like I just called her a bitch. Well I didn't call her a bitch; she figured that one out all on her own.
I guess sometimes we need life to strike us between the eyes before we actually see it.
Interview two:
I posed this conundrum to a mixed group one evening; “They have guys to take care of that,” piped up the only middle aged woman in the crowd.
My Take:
There is a prevalent wave of entitlement amongst our aging population it seems: Those between, “I want” and “I got.”
The lack of consideration of others in our society is nothing new, but most of us seem to hold to some sense of balance, a mix of selfish and selfless. For some though, this balance is influenced by a desire to project to the world how unhappy some of us really are. They graciously permit others to share in their misery. Some of us truly feel that we are of a higher station than others, some sort of hierarchy based on money perhaps, education, employment, birthright? Some are tired of living in silence, alone and mean, grouchy and soaked in store bought smells to cover the stench of spinsterhood.
Conclusion:
Yes, there is some guy there to grab your cart from the desolate corners of the parking lot, there is also a place that you can go where they feed you, bath you and wipe your ass. I suggest that retirement homes should rebrand themselves to include the more affluent middle-aged women in our society.
Comments? Look for the group B.A.L.L.S. on Facebook.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
Issue #2:
Those that leave shopping carts in parking lots instead of in designated sheltered areas.
Background:
I am a Jinsheng, chrome plated, galvanized wire mesh-shopping cart. I was made in China by an automated process that spot welds high grade galvanized steel wire together. I am then chrome plated, polished, accessorized with four rubber wheels, a plastic handle and various other bits of plastic and metal fasteners. I hold around 110 kg of stuff and I cost $125 Canadian. I carry your groceries around a grocery store, mostly, sometimes I carry a bunch of empty bottles, scattered bags, discarded quilts, stuffed animals and an assortment of jingly things found in local dumpsters. To some I am a car, a suitcase, a wagon or left strewn about the city, often outside apartment buildings in a cold jumble of carts, left behind while the procurer rides those musty, brown carpet elevators with cigarette burns on the buttons.
Others treat me with a bit more care; I am only left alone beside empty parking spaces. Abandoned by middle-aged women beside young cars instead of being transported to a nice sheltered area with my friends. I realize the difficulty in rolling me the five or 10 feet to the nearest shelter! It does make sense to leave me in the middle of a parking lot, taking up parking space, freezing alone atop the churning slush, cigarette butts, and discarded grocery receipts. I understand! You are far too busy in life to worry about anybody else. It makes perfect sense! In fact, I put forward that all of my kind are left abandoned in parking lots, rusting, cold, bloated and wheel stuck slush bound. A mere symbol of the aging Canadian populous that leaves me to another's whim. Thank you in advance middle- aged woman, I would cry if I had an eye.
The interviews:
These were a bit tough to conduct actually - imagine a busy shopping business type of scratchy nylon, half heel, sashed middle-aged woman being approached in a cold parking lot as she is closing the door to her car. As much as I wanted to, I didn't want to intimidate anybody. So I observed this process over a matter of time to see if I could deduce a pattern: Hence the “middle-aged Canadian,” mostly female in this case.
What I did discern was a sense of entitlement.
Interview one:
Although visibly put off by my query, she did have it in her to answer honestly — “They have a guy that collects these,” and looked at me like I just called her a bitch. Well I didn't call her a bitch; she figured that one out all on her own.
I guess sometimes we need life to strike us between the eyes before we actually see it.
Interview two:
I posed this conundrum to a mixed group one evening; “They have guys to take care of that,” piped up the only middle aged woman in the crowd.
My Take:
There is a prevalent wave of entitlement amongst our aging population it seems: Those between, “I want” and “I got.”
The lack of consideration of others in our society is nothing new, but most of us seem to hold to some sense of balance, a mix of selfish and selfless. For some though, this balance is influenced by a desire to project to the world how unhappy some of us really are. They graciously permit others to share in their misery. Some of us truly feel that we are of a higher station than others, some sort of hierarchy based on money perhaps, education, employment, birthright? Some are tired of living in silence, alone and mean, grouchy and soaked in store bought smells to cover the stench of spinsterhood.
Conclusion:
Yes, there is some guy there to grab your cart from the desolate corners of the parking lot, there is also a place that you can go where they feed you, bath you and wipe your ass. I suggest that retirement homes should rebrand themselves to include the more affluent middle-aged women in our society.
Comments? Look for the group B.A.L.L.S. on Facebook.
Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.
