Cart?
I had to go to the mall this weekend. The new job is much more professional and my clothes need to match my new position in the business world. Ordinarily, I hate going to the mall and this weekend wasn?t any different. I mean, people are all over the place, with their screaming and/or misbehaving children, you?ve got restless teenagers dressed like call girls and hoodlums, adults acting like kids themselves and various other miscreants and troublemakers.

I?m fairly used to this, though. Not long ago, in fact, a fight broke out between a youth who had been swearing loudly into his cell phone and a middle-aged longhaired guy in leather whose girlfriend had been offended by the swearing. We naturally stopped to enjoy the spectacle. Well, I didn't, but the person I was with did.

What I wasn?t prepared for this weekend, and what seems to be a new low, is the Cart Phenomenon. Apparently, the new thing to do when you get to the mall is hit Sears, make off with one of their carts, load your kids up into it and then use it as a makeshift stroller as you then browse and shop the rest of the stores in the mall.

If I had only seen one person doing this I might be able to let it go, but I counted three or four! What is the deal here? Can someone please explain it to me? All I can do is sadly shake my head and wonder what has happened to our society. First grocery carts and now this? The humanity!