Shopping carts may be living creatures

I have always wondered about shopping carts.

Just how do they find their ways into flower beds, flock together in the middle of a parking lot or become entangled with a car?

No, I do not wear an aluminum foil hat.

I have always looked at shopping carts as simple mechanical devices. Ones used to gather groceries or shopping items and assist in moving them from store shelves to a vehicle. A shopping cart is just a big basket with wheels.

There is nothing sinister nor animated about them.

I think.

But you have to admit there is something odd.

Maybe I am wrong.

I couldn't understand what was so unsettling to me about shopping carts until seeing advertisements for Animal Planet's "Meerkat Manor." Then it struck me.

Shopping carts appear to have similar behavior patterns with packs of animals.

They must flock together and move as a herd to locations distant from humans. How else can we explain why 21 shopping carts are huddled together at the far reaches of a parking lot? I bet they must move like gazelles being hunted by lions to avoid being caught by humans.

Occasionally a straggler is left behind and pounced upon by humans. These are the ones on their sides, showing signs of being mauled.

A few find refuge in the foliage. They hide to avoid being used. If humans take a moment to peer through the beauty bark, low ankle-scratching shrubbery and small trees, they can spot the wily carts. A few make it deep into the planters of the parking lot, most dive into the foliage with little skill, leaving their backsides hanging over the curb.

Perhaps the most clever are the more aggressive younger male shopping carts. They use stealth to engage the humans. They sneak to the small spaces between cars, often blocking the stalls nearest the store. They attack, leaving dings, dents and scratches to cars. They are of meager intelligence or they would attack the human, rather than the defenseless vehicle. But they are aggressive and not too bright.

On seldom occasions, humans have been spotted marking shopping carts. It appears similar to branding cattle, but with messier, more disgusting methods. Instead of burning a symbol into the cart's side, they leave a food container in the cart - a gooey food wrapper, nearly empty pop can, remnants of produce left to deteriorate in the sun.

The interactions between carts and humans are an odd series of rituals. I suspect shopping carts must be alive. How else can we explain their bizarre behavior?

If they were simply baskets with wheels offered by a store to help us shop, I would think humans would treat them with more appreciation. They make our life easier.

I doubt people would take advantage of the freely offered mechanical device and hurl them into flower planters, onto their sides, to the distant reaches of a parking lot, leave garbage in them or leave them in parking stalls 10 feet from a shopping cart return, where they are sure to roll into a car, damaging it. Humans wouldn't do that would they?

See? Shopping carts must be alive.

Bill Stevenson is the managing editor of the Columbia Basin Herald. We suspect he has suffered one too many shopping cart attacks against his car.