Shopping Cart Derby

December 13, 2010 1:56 am Sir Haxington Stories

The good people of Coos Bay slept. It was dark. Most had work the next day. Or school.

A ten minute drive on any given weeknight was ripe for a round of some of the best entertainment in this small West coast town.

The parking lot around the mall was vast, quiet and empty. That is, until the white Chevy Beretta appeared.

—

Brian circled around the large parking lot, filled with only lampposts and space. No vehicles around except theirs. It was late, around 11pm. The exterior of the mall was all theirs. They were all alone.

They drove erratically, in big arcs, speeding in a straight line, getting up to around 60 mph, slowing down, arcing around, doing donuts, laughing. Secretly, they were all hunting. On the prowl.

Then they saw their prey. The perfect shopping cart.

Brian drove up behind the cart and stopped.

“How fast do you think these things will go?”

They began laughing. They all had the same idea.

“I dunno. 40?”

“Let’s find out.”

Brian slowly nudged the hood of the Beretta against the push handle of the cart.

The other two hooted and hollered.

Brian pressed slowly on the accelerator. Much to their surprise, the cart snapped to the center of the hood. They assumed the cart would fly off to the left or the right. Instead, it seemingly locked itself to the hood and lined up perfectly with the forward vector of the car.

Needless to say, the three were impressed. Now to see how far they could take it.

10 mph.

The cart was just fine.

20 mph.

The cart began vibrating.

30 mph.

The cart began vibrating wildly.

40.

The cart began veering left and right wildly. Almost coming off the hood. System collapse eminent.

Brian slammed on the brakes.

Inertia is a funny thing. He was fairly confident the makers of these shopping cards hadn’t speed-rated their shopping shopping carts. 40 mph seemed much faster than their creators had intended for their shopping carts to go. Was this the fastest a shopping cart has ever gone he wondered to himself?

The cart comically carried itself across the parking lot on its four tiny wheels. The laughed as they imagined someone pushing the cart at high speeds.

The shopping cart flew along a few hundred feet before finally hitting a bump in the parking lot, tipping over, sliding and flipping chaotically for about 20 more feet in in a terrible crash. The cart finally came to a rest.

They cheered. The funniest thing they had seen all week. A shopping cart! Skittering across a parking lot all on its own, then violently crashing!

Oh, this was only the beginning.

They carried out a few more tests. They tried another cart and got up to 40 again with the same result. 40 mph seemed like the magic number. If they reached higher speeds, the cart risked coming off the hood and slamming into the side of the Beretta. Best to keep it under control.

Now to make it more entertaining. Time to aim for lampposts!

The first attempt was a near miss. They aimed the cart squarely at a lamp post. Brian got the vehicle and cart up to 20 or 30, but as he braked and turned away, the cart caught on the edge of the front bumper, tipped, and popped up onto its two left wheels. The shopping cart just missed the concrete lamppost base  by a foot or so before falling over and making a horrible crashing sound onto the pavement.

It was a hilarious and glorious failure, one that Brian course corrected for properly on the second run. This time, Brian aimed at the lamppost again, got up to speed, then slowly pumped the brakes and stopped. He avoided turning the wheel, which turned out to be the ticket to success.

CRASH! The cart slammed directly into the center of the concrete base, the force of the impact lifting the two rear wheels off the ground first, then the front two. The cart flew off an sideways angle, spinning once, then managed to stay upright! Brian drove over to inspect the damage. Both the lamppost and the cart appeared to be in good shape. Built to last!

They pulled up behind what turned out to be the last cart of Shopping Cart Derby, forever.

The three began to get careless. Because they were getting decent at aiming the carts and because they we’re aiming for lampposts as their targets, they forgot about their immediate surroundings.

Brian made another run. Up to 40 mph again. Cart shaking. Brian slowly let off the brakes. Oh no!  Lamppost miss!

Then they watched as the cart sailed past the lamppost and towards the store fronts of the mall. Made of nothing but glass.

They all screamed at once as they projected their soon to be future in their heads.

“GET IT! STOP IT! GO!”

Brian instinctively floored it.

As the Beretta climbed up to around 30 mph, he matched the speed of the cart. The wiremesh basket on four wheels was still careening straight for the large plate glass doors and windows of the mall. Disaster, coming right up.

He got up to 40 mph. Brian cut to the left. The three were speeding towards the front of the mall at deadly speeds. The mall front was coming closer. Closer. They were about to slam into storefronts themselves.

He looked to the right. The shopping cart was still hauling ass. 50 feet from the mall front. Any moment now.

The Beretta was beside the shopping cart, five feet to the right.

The three were silent. Tense. They knew what Brian was about to do. It was the only solution to the problem.

Brian barely got in front of the shopping cart, then cut the wheel sharply to the right. Brian yanked on the pull handle e-brake that lived between the driver and passenger seat. All four tires made a loud, gut-wrenching screech unlike one they had ever heard before.

The cart slammed into the passenger side door, only 20 feet from the mall front. Chris jumped back from the loud, hollow thunk of followed by the crashing and scraping of the wire mesh cart into the asphalt and against the car.

They did it. Brian did it. They avoided total disaster.

They got out and inspected the Beretta. No major damage. A few minor dents that were barely noticeable were the only physical scars.

And that was the beginning and end of Shopping Cart Derby, the shortest lived game in the history of Coos Bay mall parking lots.