Pigg Wiggly Cart Killer

Back in the day, which was a Tuesday, by the way, a friend, whom I will refer to as B, had an affinity for the Piggly Wiggly supermarket parking lot in my home town of Sioux City, Iowa. It was good for all manner of fun activities. The first being the turning of doughnuts in his parents car. The lot was ideal for this activity, as it was very large, had a slightly domed shape, combined with a sloping grade that ended on the bottom side with a surprisingly robust, almost highway grade guard rail along it. As I recall, I had not received my driver license yet, so I must have been 15 years old. Mind you, this is when the drinking age was 18, so we would have gone to the 7-11 and purchased a 12-pak of Miller Genuine Draft (before the advent of girly "lite" beer) and a couple of packs of Marlboro Reds for our driving around, aimlessly burning sixty-cent-a-gallon gasoline. Ah, the good old days. a nice dusting of snow had made the lot a lovely skating rink for the '76 white Malibu Classic with maroon interior. We would flip the air breather cover on the engine for better horse power, and a more funner sound. The technique consisted of running up to about 20 mph, and jerking the wheel all the way around, and hitting the gas, thus spinning the rear tires. This action would throw the car into a spin, and the slope, together with the spinning rear tires would allow the car to spin tight 360 degree circles, almost indefinitely. I am sure we could spin 20-30 time before we ran out of lot, or barfed. It was surprisingly fun, and one had to just not spill one's beer, or drop one's cigarette in one's lap, or slam into one of the sparsely placed light poles.

http://www.strayshoppingcart.com/shopping_cart/1_introduction.htm

The real joy that sticks in my mind though, has to do with B developing an activity that to this day I find brilliant, and am indebted to him for "inventing" After all that spinning became routine, B slowly inched up to an "old skool", heavy-duty metal wire shopping cart, not that cheap plastic crap they have these days, and began pushing it in front of the car. This was delicate, since the cart wanted to move side to side, so it took great skill to keep the cart centered as we picked up speed through the lot, on a perpendicular attitude toward the heavy duty guard rail. The rail was about 3 feet tall at the end of the lot, and a street ran about 4-5 feet below, along the other side of the railing. Once we hit around 35 mph, B would slam on the brakes, and the cart would shoot toward the rail, wobbling away, and hit it with such force as to launch it 10-15 feet into the air, and a-tumbling away, to then skitter into the street below, sparks shooting through the cold night air. One had to not get an Icarus-esque enthrallment with this activity though, as sooner or later, unwanted attention would be drawn to one's self. So, two or three cart flips, and it was back to the house to finish the beer, and jam on some Molly Hatchet, "Flirtin' With Disaster", baby! :-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhhtRxqSrys&feature=related