Shopping Cart Series: Ocean Parkway Water Carrier

This summer heat can take its toll on a cart. Even under the shade of the greenway trees, the heat coupled with the exhaust from the excessive Ocean Parkway traffic is enough to melt my plastic.

It’s not easy rolling around with all this water. What do these people think I am? A camel? Shoot, I’m not even a Hippo Water Roller. At least that thing makes carrying water “meta” efficient. I hate to admit it, but this has got to be the most inefficient way of getting water out to the thirsty.

Used to be that I would come in stacked high with bottles and by the end of the day, I could get some relief on the roll home when all the bottles were gone. But, my job out here doesn’t seem to be worth the effort now that the recession is causing dwindling sales of bottled water.

I don’t want to be dragged out of the cool garage where I could be resting all day. So, they whet my appetite for public service by telling me that I’m helping parched people stay hydrated — until I realized that this ain’t the middle of the desert!

At first, they christened me as the “Ocean Parkway Water Carrier” and smashed a bottle of Perrier on my front side. That made me feel all important thinking I was some huge ocean carrier with some precious cargo on board. But, then I heard some smart aleck pedestrian reciting the official definition of water carrier and I realized that I was neither a person, a ship, or even a pipe or duct for conveying water.  No, I wasn’t a ship at all. I’m a shopping cart filled with unwanted plastic bottles.

Now that the TapIt Water project is getting everyone on the band wagon of filling their own bottles with tap water, who needs me? Even the bicyclists riding down the greenway bring their own bottles. I would have been better off carting produce in an air conditioned megastore.

Really, I don’t think I can last the whole summer like this. If you’re driving down Ocean Parkway and I come rolling into your vehicle, don’t be surprised. Just let’s just hope your insurance covers collisions with suicidal water carriers.