Humpty Dumpty and the coohuder

It’s week number three enrolled in Shopping Cart 101. I’ve pitched in to help fill gaps in a grocery supply chain that has been slammed with an explosion of demand that is five times normal volume and where food company office workers in the larger chains are being drafted to work on the floor of various local stores.

In truth, every worker and manager plays a most critical role in their dedication to safely getting food to our tables. Despite current potential health risks, no one flinches from their duties. While I may comment light-heartedly, I am mindful of all precautions, and the observations I share are offered as an opportunity to comprehend more fully the workings of what in my view is a generally taken-forgranted service in our day-to-day lives.

I never knew my signing up would be like boot camp for cattle drovers; and sure, a oneacre asphalt parking lot doesn’t hold the romance of the old Chisholm Trail where longhorn cattle were once herded then driven to market on both sides of the Canada/ US border. However, there is a semblance to it all.

Out here on the paved not-so-lonesome range where the gulls and the shopping carts play, it’s about roping a large and feisty drove of carts and baskets and keeping them in the round-up while sterilizing them at the same time. They do lose steam when roped in and lined up, behaving more like a 5-cent pony ride as they’re led through the store.

Yet I have to give it to ya that most times around these parts I’m feeling less likened to Clint Eastwood, red kerchief and all and high up there in the saddle, but resemblin’ more like a Willie Wonka running a chocolate factory on steroids. But I’m holdin’ my own even with the younger rancheros, as a matter of fact—exceptin’ I don’t imagine them necessarily needin’ a soak in a hot tub and muscle ache rub at the end of the day, if you follow. It’s all worth it cuz in the end I’m offered a perspective and education that has forever heightened my appreciation for what goes on here.

Now take the humble grocery cart. The concept of a single store where all sorts of foods were available and customers served themselves—the supermarket— was born in California in the 1920s. A man by the name of Sylvan Goldman working in the food business there caught on to the trend and headed back to his hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma to purchase the flagging Humpty Dumpty fruit and vegetable outfit. The grocery basket was still the main conveyance back then, but when Goldman observed how women shoppers in particular had to juggle a basket along with young children, he came up with an idea.

In his office late one night he took a folding chair and to the seat he attached a large wire basket. The next day he had his engineer friend attach wheels to the rig and so the story goes—a folding and mobile basket. Various versions would be modified along the way based on Goldman’s June 4, 1937 patent. Interesting that it would not be until the 1960s that Bessie DeCamp’s 1909 invention of the safety belt for children would finally be incorporated.

Never to be easy, when the carts were first put on the floor at Humpty Dumpty blowback came from men who found pushing one too effeminate and many women saw it as too much a reminder of the baby buggy and took a pass. Not to be daunted, Goldman hired male and female actors to peruse the store demonstrating the fluidity and ease in the use of his gadget: didn’t hurt a bit that a shopper could also load more in it.

Bascart, buggy, trolley, carriage, wagon; the device is a thing of different names wherever in the world. My favourite: whenever doing groceries in Scotland you are pushing a barrae or coohuder and doing messages!

But hold on one minute! A whole new generation of buggies is coming down the pipe. Consider that it was in 2004 that Japanese research flagged their findings of significant bacteria being found on shopping carts and baskets: Without doubt, based on manual efforts to circumvent that spread especially in our times, there is definitely an invention in the works to help solve the issue.

So no surprise to learn that we have driverless models in prototype as well as an emerging line that heralds features like a sturdy shelf for computers and phone holder à la car dashboard, and maybe a cup holder and a contraption to hold a bouquet of flowers why not? You can now add further options like useradjustable wheel resistance, heart rate and carb monitoring hardware; so as not to be annoying to others, hitting the off switch on the reverse warning beeper and watching the rear view camera screen instead is the way to go.

I figure the future holds that we pop a pre-programmed grocery list into the thing once you have scanned all of the bar codes in your cupboards at home and the program tells you what you are out of. Then you just turn your coohuder loose in the store to automatically shop with Google assist Issa Rae. Not to worry about feeling redundant in the whole operation, because surely Issa Rae will know to track you down as you’re sprawled on the couch in the waiting lounge eating chips and it’s time to find a washroom.