The Lonely Shopping Cart

In a parking lot, a nondescript distance from my home; I often find myself walking my dog. And day after day, week after week I have not once failed to notice a peculiar shopping cart precariously situated in the far corner of the lot. It's filled with a wide assortment of city survival essentials; buckets, bags and bundles of clothes for warmth.

Each time I expect it to be gone, retrieved by the previous tenant, stolen by someone new and in need or removed by the people who own the parking lot it currently resides within. But no, stubbornly it clings to its spot obstinately refusing relocation or likely incarceration in the most lovely of city dumps.

My mind being what it is, cannot help but ponder over this mundane happenstance. The shopping cart is the modern-day bindle, indispensable to the homeless all around North America; and yet despite its wide-ranging applications it has been abandoned in the most inconspicuous of locations.

What was it? Death? drugs? Liberation? Incarceration? Was it genuine forgetfulness or malicious spitefulness, that has caused this key instrument to be left unattended and seemingly undesired for so long?

Who owned it? Will they eventually return to it? Why were they homeless?

My mind drifts to the various encounters I’ve shared with London’s homeless population; from an outwardly cracked-out woman, loudly traipsing through the suburbs in the late hours of the. Her internal monologue distinctly falling out of her mouth and tumbling incoherently into the external night air. Although her wild hair and oversized pink winter jacket (worn proudly in July) always stick out in my mind, the things that always calls her back to my thoughts is the unbelievably loud luggage bag she dragged behind her along the sidewalk, clattering and shuddering with each bump or crack. A certain candidate for someone who legitimately forgot where they left their shopping cart.

Or an older man, about 50 to 60 who I shared shelter at the entrance of a Loblaws supermarket during a particularly sudden and violent rainstorm. I was really impressed with his method of busking; as people would pass he’d wish them a wonderful day, if they wished it back, he’d cap off the interaction with a solid, god bless you. As I sat there, waiting for my ride back home I felt a genuine respect for him that I still cannot really explain. Shortly after that respect was ratified as an even older man, with a fairly light grocery bag, responded to this gentleman’s good day with vitriol infused:

“Get a Job, A Real Job” before walking off into the rain.

I stood there, stunned, the next words out of my mouth.

“Wow, what a C*nt” which I felt the man busking appreciated, as he walked over to me. Apparently, he had frequently encountered this man, and had in fact explained, frequently, all the reasons why he couldn’t work, back surgery, mental illness, etc; but he would still always get that response. We talked about it for a while before my ride came, but I fondly remember that interaction. I could see that guy having his cart stolen, left in that parking lot by shitty people just trying to mess with someone who can’t fight back or one of his peers, spitefully stealing his stash over some disagreement.

Every time I see this cart the possibilities always pass through my head, the core w’s of any good story, what, why, when, who...

But, I always push it out of my mind. I’d rather not imagine the people I’ve seen across London as the owners of the shopping cart, because, as always, I loop back to that most unfortunate of speculation; death. How did they die? It stops being a question to me at a certain point; no resources in this summer heat. I've come to accept it, even with no proof for or against it. Just an extension of my morbid curiosity.

At the end of the day to me and that loyal shopping cart they might as well be dead and gone never to return.

I've contemplated calling the city or bringing it to the attention of the business that borders the parking lot. But at the end of the day, just like the shopping cart, I'd much rather it be removed by the same hands that led it to that lonesome spot.