Thomas W.P. Slatin

The great thing about life in the big city is the abundance of shopping carts.  They’re everywhere.  While staying with family in Long Island, New York, I found several shopping carts in their housing complex.  It took me only 10 minutes to round up 5 shopping carts and 1 small shopping cart from a dollar store.

Unfortunately, shopping carts are not designed to be stacked.  They are designed to be pushed one inside another for storage.

I took a break to grab my camera.  While I was inside, I saw a news story that said that stacking shopping carts was dangerous.  Please don’t attempt to stack shopping carts.  It’s a bad idea.

The stacking began once I returned outside.  I noticed that stacking shopping carts is not as easy as one would expect.  Shopping carts are large metal objects with wheels on the bottom.  They’re also heavy.  Very heavy.  Their enamel paint coating makes stacking even more difficult because there is no friction involved to help hold the carts in place.

I stacked two carts on top of each other.  It held well but it looked unsturdy.  The third shopping cart took the whole stack tumbling to the ground.  There had to be a way to stack the carts!  I was determined to find out how!

Plan ‘B’ was put into effect.  Instead of stacking them in one big tower, I started by placing one on the ground upside down.  Then, I placed more carts on top of the bottom one at specific angles so that the weight would force the carts into their correct placement.  It worked at the expense of a smaller tower.

It seems that stacking carts on an angle is crucial for stacking success, but results in a shorter tower.  I stacked the carts so high that I couldn’t reach the top of the pile.  By this time, I had a bunch of childen from the housing complex standing around me trying to figure out what I was doing.

The stacking continued.  I was able to stack the carts approximately 3 carts high.  I needed a ladder and more carts to build it higher.  By the time I was done, several children were watching, along with a few adults who were about my age.  I wanted to see if I could stack the carts higher without using a ladder, but I didn’t trust the tower with my weight, and holding carts in my hands while climbing at the same time didn’t appeal much to me, either.

After a few photos of the stacked shopping carts, I pushed the tower over for safety reasons and passed out some of my cards so that everyone could see the photos online later.

Remember, don’t stack shopping carts.  It’s a dangerous and possibly illegal activity.

Getting caught with a shopping cart in The State of New York can cost you a $100 fine for each cart, and you will be required to return the cart to the store.