Bumper Carts

 

When I go to the Tummy Temple there is a fleet of bumper carts recharging in the indoor garage. Sometimes there is a person sitting there. Sometimes they are broken. Sometimes I watch as someone stumbles in the doorway with a cane or crutches or a walker or with the help of someone else and head for the motorized basket cart’s padded seat.

Once on the floor, they fill the aisle zooming at a speedy two mph. The driver (don’t know if they have licenses?) can only see up to the second shelf and while the basket is oversized, if there is need for the 24-roll toilet paper, this might require two trips.

On Friday, which is old folks day now, the area is full of these silent bumper carts trying to make the turns without knocking over displays of wine or run headlong into someone else.

These electrical motorized mobile machines have not always been there. So what happened to all the folks who ride around today before these carriages arrived?

Older folks who had difficulty with manual transportation would have to send someone else to the Tummy Temple to retrieve sustenance. Before that, the local grocer would have to be informed of a shopping list and assemble the goods to be delivered to the neighbor. Even the usual push-shopping cart has only been available since the 50’s. You had to bring your own bag for there were no paper bags or bag boys.

So now there are electric shopping bumper carts to glide around the pharmacy, canned goods and sugar drinks area. Some have drivers so large one wonders why the wheels don’t pop. Others have some seemingly well kids who just are along for the ride in the fair.

While the Tummy Temple’s deacons are stocking shelves, mopping the spills, giving wrong directions; there are no traffic cops. What happens if one of these carts looses a charge? Who gets a spare to transfer the shopper and all their products then push the cart back to be plugged in? Like the other carts, someone has to go into the parking lot to retrieve them from the designated disable area being blocked by the immobile bumper cart. What if a disabled person walks into the Temple to find all the bumper carts are in use? What happens if there is a wreck?

I don’t see anyone doing doughnuts or wheelies but these things can be dangerous. Luckily they have a beeper when they go in reverse, but for the most part I try to avoid them (just like the big ones in the parking lot). This also frees me from the sad eyes of drivers who can’t reach up to the top shelf cereal box.

I’m not totally heartless for I avoid those who are studying the ingredients on a bottle of cooking oil or even the deer-in-the-headlights guys trying to choice their IPAs. That might mean two or three trips around the perimeter but that is just exercise and I have time to spend.

My daily trip to the Tummy Temple is more than just filling my zip cart with silver bullets but to also intermingle with society. Watch the couples interaction, the screaming kids riding backwards, the vendors wheeling in pallets of product off the truck, the gals in custom cooking from bakery to yesterday’s fried chicken that were easy to bypass and the occasional cutie pie who makes the trip worth the effort.

I’m not draping over the cart and moving slow (yet) or climbing into the seat of the bumper cart for a drive down the grocery highway but I will watch the technology changes as I age. At least they have handlebars (like my bike) and only one speed (slow). Still it would be exciting to have races.