THE WORLD'S GREATEST INVENTION

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When the Nobel Peace Prize people get together wherever it is they get together (Vegas, maybe?), I hope they do the right thing and nominate the person who has done more for world peace than all of their previous winners combined. I am talking, of course, about the person who invented grocery store race car carts. For those of you who have not been to a grocery store lately, or those who are really lacking skills of observation, race car carts have been popping up at every grocery store on the planet. They are your standard grocery cart, but they have been outfitted with a plastic race car shell that small children can sit in. Think of it as a Kit Car for toddlers. And, for some reason unbeknownst to me, the race cars completely engross the children. Perhaps it is the bright colors. Perhaps it is the steering wheel. Perhaps it is some chemical that seeps out of the plastic. Whatever it is, it works like a charm.

For those of you with older children, you recall the days of the old grocery store cart. In order to tote a child, you had three options:

Place them seated facing you, in the seat area by the handles of the buggy. This is the proper and most safe way, and the only way recommended by the crude drawings on the seat of the cart. However, it was also the least-used way of child-transport, since children have an aversion to anything that might help a parent maintain sanity.

Place the child in the basket. The main problem with this is that you were essentially arming your child. You had to be exceptionally responsive to ensure that other shoppers didn’t get a can of soup to the noggin.

Place you child in the bottom of the cart, restrained by the well-placed bag of dog food. The main problem with this, however, is that people tend to frown upon it. Oh, and authorities might get involved.

For years, parents had to struggle with these options. There was nothing to entertain the child. There was only potential damage and destruction, to the child, to other shoppers, and to your clean record. Cart manufacturers sensed a problem, and they designed a new kind of cart. It had little plastic chair-type things at the front of the cart that you could safely secure two children into. While this seemed an improvement, there were two flaws in the design. First, if you put children together, they were within kicking distance of each other. Second, the cart’s length was extended to roughly 27 feet, so navigation was a bit of a bear.

And then, divine inspiration struck, and the geniuses in charge of the nation’s grocery store cart design came through in a way that makes other countries blush. The race cars, complete with numbers on the side, have saved the day.

Whenever I take my two-year-old to the store, she clamors for the race cars. In fact, it has gotten to the point that, if I show up and all of the cars already have drivers, I will hold off until one is available.

My fellow shoppers may not realize it, but the peace and harmony I bring is a gift for them. I am very excited to learn of the next generation of grocery carts. After seeing this technological leap, I can only imagine where we might go next. Hovercrafts? Personal choppers? Teleportation machines? The possibilities are endless. Whatever the next generation of carts brings us, it will be hard to match the ingenuity of the race cars. I for one would like to meet the folks responsible for this. Maybe I’ll see if I can catch them in Vegas.