For years I’ve been seeing these guys in the supermarkets and other stores. I wondered who they were and why they were draped over the handles of their shopping-carts. At the same time I thought that the way they handled their vehicles was great.
Then I found out they belong to an exclusive club and today I became a member. I zoomed my way into the supermarket, did a couple of wheelies in the entrance, and near the pasta aisle I swung my cart into a 360 degree turn which would have made Vin Diesel proud. At the meat counter I did a four-wheel slide around the corner while the butcher clapped. I’m a shoe-in for the next street-racing movie that Vin makes.
To join this club all you need is a bad back. Any kind of back pain gets you in. The pain must make you hang over the handle of the cart like a wet cloth. A slipped disc, a torn muscle or a displaced vertebra gets you full membership while a simple broken back qualifies you for the special class. The worse your back problem, the greater the respect you receive from the non-members in the aisles. They will move out of the way when they hear you groaning in pain as you trundle along.
Carts for drivers in the “Back Problem” class will be able to take carts fitted with fire-engine sirens and flashing lights. Members will have a special check-out lane where the electronic reader will read the cost of your purchases by the cartful, avoiding any waiting in line while the cashiers go through each item.
I had a successful supermarket session this morning. My shrieks of agony moved slow moving shoppers to the right leaving me clear access to the shelves on the left. A few heavy grunts and twitches as I neared the long lines at the check-outs had great effect: people looked me scrunched up over my trolley, saw that I only had 40 items in the basket and said, “let that poor man through…”
Membership? Free. No application forms. No doctors’ examinations. Just arrive, er… stagger up and you’re in.
