Something A Little More Concrete
On Shopping Carts, Packages, & Unsung Communities
The breakroom door suddenly swings open, and my manager immediately says, “Hey Cory, go ahead and round the carts up when you finish”. I’m sitting at a long table of the PetSmart breakroom in Tigard, Oregon, finishing up my last 5 minutes of freedom before the store closes in a few hours. A rush of excitement expels across my body, and I prepare myself for a world beyond the walls of this chain pet store.
In the summer of 2004, PetSmart became my first real high school job. Though I would stay a little over a year and a half, quitting halfway through my senior year due to a physically and emotionally abusive general manager (my two good friends and I quit on the same day), the job was not without its share of wild experiences and people. But the time spent corralling the shopping carts around the parking lot was easily one of my favorite parts of the job; the call for a cart round up over the PA system elected blissful music to my ears.
PetSmart then shared the shopping complex off SW Dartmouth with a WinCo, Office Depot, and a rotating array of spaces from a party supply to a patio furniture store. The location of the shopping mall always dumbfounded me, feeling out of place. Akin to awkwardly forcing a piece of furniture into a corner of a room as a sense of style; if anything it threw off the whole vibe. Peering out from this complex, you could see the CostCo, which felt like a mountain in the distance, and behind, the Tigard Cinemas, where a lot of my life memories involved buying bulk candy at WinCo, and sneaking it in. These tightly vested complexes felt like cities in my teenage mind, nestled as comforting spaces for the identifiable world around me; as though my lack of worldly travel experience as a teenager could be surrogated by my knowledge of the suburban heart.
Fishing after carts from the PetSmart parking lot of neverending concrete was like a cigarette break for my teenage self. Walking confidently through the two rows of automatic doors, bungee cord or racket strap in hand, feeling the heat pulsate from its tire marked exterior of gray concrete. With my hand over my eyes, I would scan the horizon, scouring for the signature PetSmart blue plastic, its four wheels propped up against curbs, scattered alone, blocking sidewalks, or in the middle of a parking space.
Escaping the corporate pet store prison of harsh fluorescent lights, ear-piercing Muzak pumped through the speaker system, and the duty of literally picking up dog doody, I was a free soul with a beating heart. Out in the parking lot, I could sing, and dance, and ride the abandoned carts into one another, docking one upon the other, the loud sounds of their clashing just another cacophony amongst of car doors slams, the whirl of human chatter, and the buzz of the nearby interstate. The whole operation was one giant ship, and I, its teenage captain, one hand on the bungee cord to keep the contraption together, like a horse's reign.
The summer nights of cart roundup, just before closing time, were particularly magnificent. The breeze from the cool down of the day would sweep across the parking lot, the alpenglow kissing the horizon, juxtaposed against the dinghy orange cobweb-filled overhead street lights which illuminated the lonesome shopping carts in the faraway reaches of the concrete void. Time and space felt non-existent in these moments, as though the great expanse of the parking lot would continue endlessly, and I could walk for hours, gathering carts, my mind filling up from the trapped heat of the concrete and the freedom of endless possibility once my shift was finished.
Despite my enjoyment of the rodeo roundup of shopping carts, I still tried to wrap my head around the idea of people’s lack of effort to return the carts into their designated cart drop-offs. At the time, I didn’t mind customers who left their carts recklessly against the tree pits or in parking spaces. While usually performing out of laziness, those customers were providing reciprocity to some degree, allowing me to extend my time outside against the cruel call of a dog poop bag or wooden mop handle. Or, dealing with face-to-face interactions with customers in general. Customer interactions at a corporate pet store definitely influenced my decision to skew towards back-of-house like careers, like brewing. I love talking with people, but I despise dealing with their condescending attitudes.
Sometimes a half-concerted effort would be put forth, leaving the cart just barely at the lip of the entrance of the cart return, as if the individual would shrug and say, “Eh, good enough”. The most bizarre were the carts found way on the adjacent parking lots, as though they were cows who had escaped their enclosure, wandered off aimlessly grazing on concrete pebbles, and were now lost with no clue of how to return. Spotting one of these carts, typically in the Office Depot parking lot on the opposite side of PetSmart, gave me a mission to complete, and more time outside. With the cart in my possession, I would plant my feet on the lower bar of the cart, propeling my body skywards, using my right leg to push myself off the concrete, hurtling towards the entrance of the furthest cart return. WIth my body hunched over, my arms were outstretched to use the upper portion of the cart as a mechanism for steering. The wind would whoosh through my hair, the sweet kick of adrenaline coursing through my body. I felt like I was on a stage, performing for the crowd of empty parked cars, waiting for their passengers to return.
The monotony had to be disrupted somehow; anything to find joy in the little things.
Despite all its faults, my short lived PetSmart career did instill a keen sense of returning carts to their proper homes. While many people revel in how everyone should work in a restaurant job once in their lives, as a way of forming empathy for wait staff, I also believe working retail should also be a mandatory requirement for life. Not until I stumbled upon a meme, many many years later, did the human condition surrounding those lonesome carts really come into play. Enter, the “Shopping Cart Theory”:
I’ve always loved this as a play on the greater human condition; this idea of self-governing and a firm reflection of being a good person. One may argue it doesn’t encompass whether or not a person is fully good, maybe just nurtured to return the cart, but I would like to think it’s a decent indicator of the ability to care about someone outside yourself; an understanding you are not suffering from “main character” syndrome, and your actions influence on the world around you, good and bad.
Will you hurt anyone by not returning your cart? Not necessarily. You may piss a few people off by blocking a parking spot, or your runaway cart comes loose from the curbside, scratching another car door, but these are all fleeting. No reprehensible damage will be caused by your laziness. Though I do imagine some Rube-Goldberg machine montage of the cart hitting a curb which rattles some an acorn loose, the acorn hitting a strap holding some metal pipes together the back of a truck, the strap loosening causing the pipes to spill and cascade onto the parking lot, which a car swerves to avoid the rolling pipes, the car running into you as you’re putting away your groceries. But, of course, this only happens in the movies, and on the freeways in Phoenix where trucks drive 90 mph or more with an amalgamation of shit clinging to a truck bed for dear life.
Many people justify their cart abandonment by announcing loudly to no one, “The cart person will surely take care of this; it’s their job!”. While the statement may be true, given my penchant for cart retrieval, I would argue I’m the odd one out in this scenario, compared to my coworkers. What a world you must live in to believe a simple task is reduced down to someone else’s responsibility beyond your own. One can easily write off and justify an action by using busyness as an excuse. Who has time to return their shopping cart to a conveniently located cart return when there are more pressing matters to attend to, like a business happy hour for your cryptocurrency company, or a [insert your favorite trending exercise class that has yet to be thoroughly studied for bodily impact].
While shopping carts and the sprawling parking lots associated with them are lacking in these larger cities, while living in Brooklyn, I experienced my own version of the Shopping Cart Theory, but applicable to the BCLE™.
Shopping carts are a rare sight in the Big City Living Experience™, usually kept inside the Target or Whole Foods property lines, safe from the dangers of the wild streets. If you do happen to find a department store with parking, your cart is usually equipped with automatic wheel lock the moment you cross a certain threshold, keeping the honest people from venturing too far outside the shopping cart’s domain.
Purely anecdotal, but I’ve noticed a lack of cart return in these situations, and I wonder how much cart returning is attributed to the knowledge and experience of living in suburban neighborhoods; the concept of a cart return never taught or understood within the confines of the BCLE™.
Park Slope is an affluent neighborhood, once home to some of the richest families during the 1890s, and now within the last 30 years, has secured itself as one of the most desirable neighborhoods in NYC. Bordering Prospect Park, the Central Park of Brooklyn, Park Slope has a bucolic feel, as the concrete jungle of the city, and easily accessible serene nature of Prospect Park, intertwine.
For someone growing up in Portland, a city flush with greenery and gateways to the outdoors, Park Slope felt like home the minute I moved into the neighborhood back in December of 2022. An added bonus of Park Slope was not nature related at all, but through one of the most generous and well-meaning communities I had ever been a part of (a blessing, and a curse). The pinnacle of the Park Slope community relies solely on an online Facebook group called Park Slope Together.
Park Slope Together, or PST as it’s known, is an enhanced version of the NextDoor app started in March 2020, right as the pandemic was beginning to take root. PST’s little tendrils spread all encompassing aspects of the neighborhood, even extending its influence into adjacent Brooklyn neighborhoods. Anything you would love to know about Park Slope, you can find it on there. And if you can’t, you’ll have your answer in a moment of hours, if not minutes, after posing your question.
Park Slope, at this moment, is the equivalent of an urban suburbia of retired folks and stay at home parents with nothing better to do than refresh the group page, answer questions, and of course, complain (often nonsensical and hilarious). The group itself is a bundle of entertainment after a rough day, but was also my direct way of keeping a pulse on the going’s-on in the neighborhood. Without PST, I would have never been as deeply invested in the neighborhood, nor would I have felt as accepted. Through the group, I’ve met neighbors, made friends, and found good places to scream; all through the interactions of this Facebook page.
I often refer to myself as not a home-body, but neighborhood-body, enveloping myself within the couple square miles of wherever I live; Park Slope provided ample opportunity to satisfy my taste for exploration, in more ways than just walking around. The Park Slope Together group amplified this experience, feeling like an old retired New Yorker, living vicariously through the rants & raves of the citizens who have survived in the neighborhood longer than I have existed on this earth.
Through the frequently posed “wrong address” package posts on the Park Slope Together page, community building was cemented in real time. A neighbor would post a photo of an often generic mailroom or apartment building entrance, with the caption, “Does anyone recognize this apartment entrance? My package was delivered here.” The source of the photo is usually from the delivery person themselves; the quality is often haphazard and out of focus. Other neighbors soon would chime in with “Looks familiar, but not mine!” or “Wait, that looks like my friend’s boyfriend’s brother's place!”. Within a few hours, the package is delivered to the proper person, safe & sound. If the package is from Amazon, another member is often decrying Amazon (as one should), telling the poster to just “Have Amazon send you a new one!”. These small facets of community building have often astounded me, even though the posts themselves are so fleeting.
Within this online community exists a massive amount of camaraderie, not just in package reuniting, but of support. I would like to believe people are inherently good, and want to help in their communities, but often lack the resources or outlets to do so. To the outside observer, declaring a Facebook form of community bonding/service may be a stretch; spend a few days on the group and you’ll change your mind. Through the online ecosystem of Park Slope Together, members of the Park Slope neighborhood (and even those who have left) are able to extend their digital helping hand, resulting in true impact.
On a similar spectrum, but opposite emotions, are the package theft posts. Every community grieves and rallies over this travesty, but big cities, especially NYC, are known for frequent amounts of package theft. With many older apartment buildings lacking a door person, or actual mailroom, the packages are typically left between a common “two door” system. The first door is typically left unlocked; the second door locked, with a buzzer system between the two doors. If you have a package arriving that day, maybe you’ll be lucky enough to have a neighbor who’s home, and will buzz the delivery driver in. Unfortunately, this can also become a double-edge sword, as those wanting to be buzzed in have no relation to any delivery service. Hence, ample possibilities for theft.
Everyone will be the victim of package theft at least once in their career, enough to solidify your understanding of how special receiving a package can be, while simultaneously feeling violated to the extent you will do everything in your power to stop theft from happening again. A BCLE™ hasn’t been truly lived until package theft happens to YOU.
Sometimes, the package thieves outsmart all of us, and not unlike a superstrain of bacteria, find new ways to implement their destructive visions.
During my time in Park Slope, my oddest experience with package theft surrounded an old Verizon modem found within a package delivered to my apartment. My partner at the time and I were both a bit stumped, acknowledging we neither of us had ordered a modem, especially one of such “maturity”. Inspecting the box furthered our confusion - the bottom had been closed using the “flap over flap” method. Not until my partner went through their Amazon order history, did we realize our canned cat food was never delivered, but had instead been swapped out through the bottom for this… modem. Weird. We wondered if, due to the package's weight, the thief believed there to be something more valuable than urinary tract wet cat food. Bon appétit, I guess (and yes, we requested a new one from Amazon).
While living in Ukraine, I casually mentioned to my coworkers how the old grandmothers, or “babushkas”, would often watch me like a suspicious wrinkled hawk while I explored the city of Lviv by foot. My coworkers laughed, joking how the babushkas were the unpaid neighborhood watch of the city, guarding the neighborhood better than the corrupt police force. Not until I moved into my place in Park Slope, did I realize how these apartment complexes are a silent ecosystem teaming with life, operating dependently on the generosity of the apartment neighbors rather than random internet strangers. Within the brick confines of my apartment building, I was able to recognize a similar version of not only the Ukrainian babushkas, but of the Shopping Cart Theory; one in terms applicable to the NYC living experience.
Let’s return to the apartment complex entrance, and package deliveries. More often than not, a delivery driver never even buzzes the apartment they’re delivering to, instead opting to leave the package in the threshold between the entrance and exit doors of the apartment complex. I don’t fault them; delivering packages is already a hell of a job. Then, to deal with the compounding stress of delivering in NEW YORK CITY, in their attempts at finding van parking, being yelled at for practically anything, yet they deliver our modern conveniences? Be nice to your delivery drivers, people.
Now with the packages hiding in plain sight, slightly exposed to the outside world, this provides a perfect opportunity for those people fishing for packages to know where to look. In one fell swoop, packages can be taken without anyone ever noticing. But dear lord, how do we prevent such a terrible travesty?
As neighbors, we come and go out of our apartment buildings multiple times per day, passing through our apartment entrance and the exit to the outside world. Whether it be for work, dinner, drinks, yoga, dog (or cat) walking, we pass through this two door threshold multiple times per day, the tiny liminal space in which our brain switches modes. The same liminal space where delivery drivers often leave packages when in a rush.
As neighbors, we may never see each other, come face-to-face, or even learn each other’s names other than seeing them on the labels on the packages themselves. Yet we all exist in the chaos and fury of living in one of the largest metropolitan cities in the world. We understand the struggles of missing the subway by milliseconds, watching the doors close right in front of your face, the oppressive heat of the summer, and the anger of irritation (and stench) that comes with it all. And, of course, dealing with the noise. So much noise, externally, and internally, within our own minds.
Despite all the weight and trauma associated with living in New York City, we still take a second out of our day to bring the packages we find within the liminal space of our apartment entrance. Sometimes we do it without thinking, even if the packages aren’t even for us. Sometimes, for myself, I’m exhausted and mentally bruised from a rough day of ~existing~, letting out a large sigh when I see a stacked tower of packages when I come through the first row of doors. Because I know I should bring the packages in, because I would want someone to bring mine in if they were left there. As dwellers in our apartment complex, we all understand how much package theft can be the straw breaking the camel’s back after a long day of surviving the onslaught of the Big City Living Experience™.
Packages are like a sacred prize for apartment dwellers, and we all ubiquitously understand and silently acknowledge how much packages mean to those around us. A treat or gift for ourselves, allowing joy to exist in ourselves, juxtaposed against the wild unforgiving landscape of New York City. By bringing in someone else’s packages, you are offering a gesture of shared experience, of understanding how much the excitement of receiving a package means to someone, even if the contents are just generic gummy multivitamins.
Here, within this small service of gratitude, the act of bringing a stranger’s package inside, is the Apartment Package Theory (not finalized; I’m open to other names).
To slightly plagiarize and skew the aforementioned Shopping Cart Theory meme - no one will punish you for not bringing in your neighbor’s packages, no one will fine or hurt you for not bringing in your neighbor's packages, and you gain nothing from bringing in your neighbor’s packages (maybe a thank you, if you’re seen). You bring in your neighbor’s packages out of the goodness of your heart. You recognize being a victim of package theft sucks, and you’re able to spread the empathy of package theft outside yourself. You bring in your neighbor’s packages because bringing them in is the right thing to do.
Walking through Park Slope and the surrounding neighborhoods beyond, I will always chuckle at the posters taped to apartment entrance doors, in almost serial-killer scribble, announcing a wolf amongst the herd. “BEWARE, PACKAGE THIEF!!!” the paper says, with several poor quality photos of an obscured face behind a hooded sweatshirt, obviously carrying a package as they head for the exit. The rallying cry to fellow neighbors to keep watch for this unknown individual, in case they strike again.
A package theft attack against one apartment dweller, is a package theft attack against all apartment dwellers.
A few weeks ago I found myself at the Trader Joe’s off 39th and Holgate in Portland, Oregon. I’m back in my hometown of Portland currently; originally through the summer, but will now be longer. After unloading the groceries that would soon fill the cabinets and refrigerator of my summer sublet in Sellwood, I found myself with an empty shopping cart, and a cart return on the other side of the parking lot… All with a slight downhill.
Out of natural instinct, I placed my left foot on the red stability bar between the two back wheels, jutted myself upwards onto the small cart, and pushed off the scorching midday concrete with my right foot. I flew across the parking lot, piloting my rickety ship towards its intended target, not a care in the world of who was possibly watching (or judging) this mid-30s man with a grin across his face.
Suddenly I’m pulled back to my PetSmart days during cart corral, to a time when the world felt full of possibility as a teenager; a little easier and myopic. The memories of an endless summer, juxtaposed against a haunting orange glow of street lights transposed on a desolate concrete plane. Within the brief fleeting moments flying across the Trader Joe’s parking lot, a sixteenth of the size of the gargantuan concrete lot of my youth, life feels like it might be ok after all. The thrill is not unlike the feeling of finding a package on your doorstep, the order forgotten through the haze of the week and adult responsibility.
Next time you find yourself in the parking lot of some major chain, park far away. So when you finish unloading your groceries or whatever economic capitalistic pleasure you indulged in that day, you too can enjoy the journey of setting your feet upon the bottom bar of the shopping cart, and flying across the endless concrete plane laid in front of you. As you make your way effortlessly towards the cart return, hopefully you have a package waiting for you at home, taken inside from someone who cares.
Until next time,
Cory