On Shopping Carts and Modernity - #35
Hello Maiyah (and friends)!
Hope all you pretty people are doing pretty good. I am writing this newsletter on Monday morning and scheduling it for Wednesday. I’m busy this week and got stuff to do. This newsletter is a little offbeat; it’ll feel “retro”, I guess?
Before we head into the essay, remember:
Wear your mask! Social distance! Be informed!
This has been a public service announcement by the STSW.
On Shopping Carts and Modernity
900 words | 03min 30sec reading time
When you think of the modern invention of the shopping cart, you have to imagine all the thought that went into it.
We need a thing for people to place their groceries in, but what? A basket that you hold? What if you need to buy a lot of things? And if you need to buy a lot of things, how big should this basket be? Screw that, you’re going on wheels. And if you’re having a basket on wheels, you’re gonna be pushing this thing – so there’ll have to be a bar to grip on, right? What about the drooling blob of fat we call my baby? You can put ‘em in the little basket placed conveniently above the bigger basket. What about my big bags of shit? I don’t want to place my big bags of shit next to my Cheerios? Well well well, then we’ll have to put a little platform under the big basket. Ahh, but the basket? We’ll elevate all your food shit and have it raised just enough above your big bags of shit so it doesn’t touch the shitty floor. “Perfect!” said inventors if they thought 100 years ahead.
Before the 1920’s, over-the-counter service dominated the grocery store scene, with salespeople giving you what you asked (“I need a can of pineapples.”). Afterwards, grocery stores became self-service when brands, advertising, and refrigerators became more mainstream – (“Hmm, Dole Pineapples or Del Monte?”). Fridges were small. Food spoiled fast. One parent worked in the family. Therefore, people went shopping all the time, like every 3 days. Because of this, people used little wicker baskets to shop.
In 1937, an Oklahoma man named Sylvan N. Goldman, who owned 10 self-service grocery stores, was wondering one night in his office, “How do I make my customers get more food in one wicker basket?” He saw a folding chair in the corner and looked at a basket, and went, “Hmmmm.” Sylvan called up a mechanic buddy, threw some metal and wheels together, and voila, he came up with the shopping cart. He built a few more and put out a local ad. This was the OG model:
The customers that came the next morning were speechless… because they hated it. “That looks feminine! I’m no woman!” said the men. “I don’t want to push my baby around even more!” said the women. Goldman was stumped. “Lightbulb!” said Goldman, “I’ll hire shills to use my shopping carts to make them seem useful. Someone in the front will explain to customers how to use it.” Customers loved it! “Problem solved!” Goldman rejoiced, “I’ll also sell them to other grocery chains. I’m gonna be a millionaire!” And he did! Happy endings!
Until in 1946, Orta Wilson in Kansas City, MO came up with the “telescope shopping cart”, which is the nesting utility in shopping carts that we know today. Soon Goldman’s patent on the shopping cart withered, and he let it go.
Because of the shopping cart’s innovations, grocery stores were able to become bigger. Bigger families! Bigger fridges! Urbanization! No longer did you park the cart and carry the bags to your car. Now you take the cart to your car! You load them groceries in and shut the trunk. “But parking lots have gotten bigger, and I don’t want to make that trip back to the storefront.” You’re right. There should be parking lot racks for shopping carts. People all over the Western world got accustomed to returning their cart to the rack. “Why do that?” Well, aren’t you a nice person? “Yes?” Then return the damn cart. Internet philosophers have come to call this “The Shopping Cart Theory“.
But wait a minute, have you noticed recently that shopping carts are shrinking? Huge baskets are pointless to 21st-century broke city people. You are now seeing smaller shopping carts in grocery stores located near college campuses and city jungles. The Pavilions near my apartment has them. The Trader Joes up the street has them. They’re a reflection of the current society.
Now the pandemic is accelerating an inevitable de-evolution of the shopping cart. The shopping cart is shifting from its original 1940’s intention of being the personal shopper basket to the clerk shopper wagon. Grocery store chains want you to feel like a million bucks, so they use the euphemism “personal shoppers”. “With our app, you can order online and your personal shopper will get your order ready!” Call them what they are: a store lackey.
Drifting from the days of the personal shopping cart, store lackeys will be bringing the groceries to your car… or, over-the-counter. Soon you’ll only be typing “canned pineapples” and hitting the first result that pops up, regardless of brand.
Gone will be the days of kids riding in shopping carts. The indecisiveness on which bread on Aisle 2 will vanish. The love stories of, “We bumped carts in the fruit section,” will slowly go away. The shopping cart experience will fade.
As one more public gathering area becomes “efficient”, it’s another inch toward the ever-increasing isolation of the typical Westerner and its crumbling relationship with the local community.
Imagine: it’s July 3rd, 2027. Everyone’s waiting in the Kroger parking lot for their cookout groceries. There’s not a shopping cart in sight. You stop looking at your phone and look around.
News&Video
CARL REINER’S LIFE SHOULD REMIND US: IF YOU LIKE LAUGHING, THANK FDR AND THE NEW DEAL - tl;dr - In Reiner’s memoir “My Anecdotal Life,” he wrote that “I owe my show business career to two people: Charlie Reiner” — his brother — “and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”
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Silly Sh*t
I enjoyed the July 4th celebrations. Went to the countryside and had a cookout with some cousins and got sunburnt by the pool.
I’m writing this on Monday morning, and I’m seeing a psychotherapist on Tuesday. By the time this post goes out on its scheduled Wednesday, I would have already met her. And by the phone call we had last week, she seems nice. Now — I’m of course not going to say why I’m seeing a therapist. It’s personal. But I will say that I've been wondering about the different kinds of therapists there are. I was thinking of seeing a psychedelic-assisted psychotherapist, a practitioner who uses mushrooms, tea, and other silly things to put you through an 8 hour psychedelic analysis session. Alcoholics and nicotine addicts have a 75%-95% quit rate after the session, which is the highest psychologists ever seen. Put a pin in that — I’m not an alcoholic or sucking on nicotine — I have a “phobia” to let you all know. Anyways, didn’t know where to find one, and MAPS.org wasn’t going to help, so I dropped the search and settled on a typical therapist.
Cooked steak on mesquite wood recently. I want to do the Argentine open grill cooking I saw on CBS one time. Maybe someday I’ll grab a bunch of people, head out into the woods, and do a big cookout like Francis Mallmann does. Then again, my typical dinner consists of rice and beans or canned tuna between bread.
Applying for jobs still. Still nothing. But good news: my unemployment identity verification finally got through and 3-4 months of backed up unemployment pay hit my account this morning. Let’s just say I jumped out of bed when I saw the emails.
Got myself a 3-day personal trainer. His name is Lou and I start with him at 8am tomorrow morning (Tuesday). As a man that’s made of jelly, I’m fully aware it’s going to hurt the day after, but hey, it’ll be fun!
Not in LA yet. Mid-July. Or till I find a job. Hopefully. Thanks everyone.
Best,
Don
As always, anybody can reach me at [dnrtldg@outlook.com](mailto: dnrtldg@outlook.com)
Twitter & Insta: @dnrtldg
And for my friends… you all got my number.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_cart
https://ideas.repec.org/p/emn/wpaper/006.html
https://www.unarco.com/products.html
https://www.google.com/search?q=shopping+cart+4chan+post&sxsrf=ALeKk01FFRF_BSfz7bSvugBkU8N1TC8tXQ:1594074107152&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=pMu7AMhp39wJfM%252CX3rbkQaBaKXrzM%252C\&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTXaKlj_MxBLC_FuQSF5Bisp45fYg&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj-1Zvn1LnqAhURKa0KHZlIDKsQ9QEwAHoECAoQGA&biw=1920&bih=969#imgrc=hoZqkNTWbsdXBM_
https://revisesociology.com/2016/04/09/from-modernity-to-post-modernity/
https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/snapshot/telescoping-shopping-cart
https://americanhistory.si.edu/object-project/refrigerators/cart
https://bigthink.com/endless-innovation/on-the-internet-what-comes-after-post-modernism