As I expected, my hellebores -- which looked so awful after our freeze about a week ago -- have bounced right back. They're hardy little devils.
Yesterday's big adventure did indeed prove to be the Ikea Shopping Cart Repatriation Project. You may remember that someone abandoned an Ikea shopping cart on our street last week, and it's been sitting in various places on the sidewalk since then. I called Ikea about it last weekend, and they said they'd send someone to collect it, but no one I spoke to acted like they'd ever had to deal with this problem before -- which did not give me high hopes. The nearest Ikea is about four miles away, so how it got here in the first place is a mystery.
Every time I passed it this week, I thought about what to do next. You may say, "Why do you care? What business is it of yours?" And it was NONE of my business, really, except that it made my street look trashy and it bothered me.
I could have just called the council and reported it as rubbish. Maybe they'd have picked it up, and maybe not, but I didn't want to see it just hauled to a landfill. Having once worked in retail I know shopping carts are not cheap, and why waste it?
I thought about trying to take it on a bus, but I'd have to take two buses in order to get to Ikea and that seemed like too much faffing around. I'm not sure a bus driver would even allow it onboard. A taxi would be the easiest (but not cheapest) solution -- if the cart would fit.
So yesterday I downloaded a taxi app that I'd been meaning to get anyway, and called a black cab. It rolled up and the driver readily agreed to take me and the shopping cart to Ikea. It fit in the car with room to spare.
Here we are en route. The driver's name was Bernard. He was very curious about why I was taking on this project, and I told him I had no confidence that Ikea would do it themselves. He probably thought I stole the cart in the first place.
He asked where I was from, and we chatted about Florida -- he said he'd driven all over the state, "from the Keys to Tallahassee." He seemed incredulous that I would leave there to live in London. (I get that a lot. I actually left New Jersey for London, but never mind.)
In 15 minutes or so, we rolled up to Ikea. I hopped out and took a quick picture. "Should I smile?" said Bernard. (As you may be able to see, he did.)
I paid him and he rolled away, and I wheeled the shopping cart...
...into an empty trolley bay and left it there. Problem solved! The store was just opening but I didn't go inside. (Bernard said I should go in and tell them what I'd done, and maybe they'd give me a voucher. But again, too much faffing around.)
I'd brought my camera along, so I decided to take a photo walk back home again. (In my mind, this helped justify the £29 expense of the taxi ride.)
I started in Neasden and walked the four miles through Dollis Hill, Willesden Green and Cricklewood. I got lots of photos which I will no doubt be sharing here and on Flickr.
After I got back home, the rest of the afternoon was uneventful. I did a lot of reading, trying to catch up on blogland. I walked Olga, who had a wonderful day because...
...she found a PIZZA on the sidewalk! Yes, I let her have a slice, even though I'm sure pizza is not the healthiest thing for dogs. (Just as it's not the healthiest thing for people.) I'm sure she would have eaten it all if I hadn't dragged her away.
Finally, last night, Dave and I watched Ridley Scott's "Napoleon" on Amazon. Well, I did -- Dave fell asleep. (To be fair, he falls asleep during most movies.) It was interesting -- I know very little about the Napoleonic era despite reading "War and Peace" and harboring a desire to visit remote St. Helena myself. Joaquin Phoenix gave an understated performance -- he seemed like he was playing himself dressed as Napoleon -- but Rupert Everett stole the show as General Wellington at Waterloo, and Vanessa Kirby did a great job as Josephine.
36 comments:
I think your story about the IKEA cart is wonderful. How much care, consideration for the environment and adherence to the mission there is in this story. I liked it very much.
Well done getting the Ikea trolley home, but £29 for 4 miles.....ye gods !!
You are a hero, Steve Reed.
Well done. Consider your 29 pounds a contribution to the environment. I have taken shopping trolleys back to their respective supermarkets in my time, but for a kilometre or two, not 4 MILES. And never by taxi! Great effort and consider yourself thanked by a world that would otherwise be swamped in rubbish.
That lonely IKEA trolley will be much happier now that she is back with her friends. They will rejoice by singing "The IKEA Trolley Song" deep into the night and your heroic name will be known in IKEA car parks all over the world.
Yay Steve and Yes! Sir Pudding!! x0x0 N2
Steve, you delight me.
The thing about the cart is, if you left it, people would start throwing their trash into it, and then it becomes a huge garbage mess on the side of the road.
More people should care about where they live and how it looks.
A £29 cab fare is beyond the call of duty. I would have worked harder on Ikea to collect the trolley. No matter problem solved and on the streets where you live, there is not an abandoned trolley cart to be seen. Interesting that you used the ever so English word faffing.
I heard good things about Napoleon. I say well done on the cart -- probably far beyond what I might have done, although getting it off the street makes sense. It just looks a little trashy out there. I still would love to know how it made t in the first place! (I probably would have turned it into some kind of oversized planter for the garden, which probably would have taken longer and been more expensive than the cab ride!) But I think Bernard was right about the Voucher.
I was delighted to read that you took that cart back, even paid to do so. Good for you.
only you would spend £29 to return a shopping cart to a company that didn't care about it. just part of your habit of rescuing and retrieving. btw, how is the fruit tree doing?
There's a saying that I heard via Stephen Gaskin which goes something like, "If you see something going on and you wonder where god is in all of this, and why he's not doing something about it, consider the fact that you are god's eyes and YOU can do something about it."
That's not it exactly and of course I am not saying that you are doing god's work by taking an Ikea cart back but you are being the one who is doing something about it while everybody else walks past it and thinks, "Somebody should do something about this."
Job well done! I don't doubt that Bernard told the story of the man who paid him to take an Ikea trolley (trolly?) halfway across London to return it when he was at the pub last night.
Thank you for returning the shopping cart. I think IKEA might have presented you with a complimentary Allen wrench if you'd notified them.
Best Post Of The Year - The Joyous Tales Of Olga Girl - Karma Coupons For You - Side Note Here - Thanx To Our Lovely Public Library , Final Caught The Oppenheimer DVD A Few Nights Back - You Should Have Been A Fly On The Wall As I Navigated Their DVD Player - The Following Night , Watched AIR - All While Enjoying The Company Of A 90 Pound Dog ON MY LEG , IN MY LAP , & Butted Up Nice And Close With Me - Highlight Of My Week It Was
Be Well Brother ,
Cheers
There are not many of us fruitcakes left.
LOL. Tasker, you're hilarious. Long live the fruitcakes!
It reminds me of the Frankie Howerd story about taking two elephants on the underground.
I applaud your Sacrificial project of taking that Shopping Cart Home. We do Environmental Cleanup as Volunteers all of the time and often people seem perplexed as to why we bother. The Shopping Carts bother me too, once we loaded one up on our Truck to return it and a Cop stopped us, probably thinking we were stealing it... so, I don't do that anymore. *LOL* Well, I could certainly understand leaving Jersey for London. *Bwahahaha*
What a great adventure! I love it. I'm betting this added another colorful story to Bernard's vast list of interesting black cab encounters.
Lucky Olga with her pizza treat.
I've been wondering about that Napoleon movie. I might have to watch it. I didn't know Rupert Everett was in it. I think Joaquin Phoenix looks a lot like the paintings I've seen of Napoleon so I thought he'd be a good one for the role.
If you walked back, why didn't you walk going there? I'm sure if they knew you might have been offered one of their meat ball meals?
I'm glad the shopping cart is back home--what an adventure! Pizza isn't healthy? ;) Oh, oh, I'm in trouble!
I think you should send ikea a link to this blog post. You deserve a Swedish medal or at least a large parcel of their cinnamon rolls or maybe that round Knäckebröd and some pickled herring. When I was 13, on holidays in Denmark (1971), my parents decided to visit this newfangled shop across the sea in Sweden out of curiosity. We took a ferry at a very early hour and arrived in Gothenburg's ikea late morning. My father was yawning and one of the shop assistants told him he could choose any sofa, seat or bed for a nap in public. My father slept for maybe an hour there while shoppers walked past him.
You did a good deed, Steve. I wish whoever took our food bank carts would return them. We need them.
Yay for Olga's find! (and that you allowed her to have it!)
I've been interesting in seeing Napoleon because I've read it's an interesting and more honest take on his story.
You deserve a huge voucher from IKEA for your service. You're a truly decent and generous human being.
Hellebores: “hardy little devils.” THAT’s where they got the name.
any excuse to ride in a cab....
Dear god, rather DOG, Olga!! That photo gave me a stomach ache.
You're a gem, Steve!
Thank you for returning the Ikea cart, and a thank you to Bernard for being such an accommodating cab driver.
The cart was definitely an eyesore and would have bothered me too. Nice job getting it back to IKEA. Bernard will have fun telling this story. Sweet Olga had a surprise treat today. A little pizza never hurt anyone!
Only you, Steve. Only you. That being said - what a great story! I bet it's the only IKEA cart in the world that's ever traveled by taxi.
All good dogs deserve special treats at times. Glad you let Olga indulge a little.
Chris from Boise
I had pizza yesterday too! Go Olga!
You would be busy here as the homeless take the carts and leave the allover the place. Maybe you should come and live here and you'd have a full time job outdoors.
Good job Steve!
IKEA stores are not close to us, maybe almost 2 hours drive. It is a fun place to wander through, esp. with gr-kids. I have also wondered about the abandoned carts.
An IKEA trolley/shopping cart fits handily in a black cab! Who knew?
Yael: I do hate to see waste.
Frances: Welcome to London! LOL! (Four miles is roughly as the crow flies -- Bernard may have taken a slightly longer route.)
Debby: Nah, just a curmudgeon who can't stand a messy street.
David: Yes, exactly -- my little donation to the environment. A couple of kilometers is still a long way to push a shopping cart!
YP: I hope someone gets a recording!
N2: Yay all around!
Elle: Ha! I'm glad my craziness is amusing to people. :)
Bob: EXACTLY! It's kind of the broken-windows theory -- trash leads to more trash. (Not that I want to give Giuliani's governing theories any credence.)
Andrew: At some point it's worth it for me to pay the money in order to avoid the agita.
Jeanie: I didn't think of a garden planter! I also would love to know how it got here in the first place, though I have some theories.
Colette: I think it's worth it to save myself from having to look at it every day!
Ellen: I think they care about it, but the pieces that need to connect in order for my message to reach the right people are probably not connecting. The fruit tree is fine! It's on the patio.
Ms Moon: That's a great saying, and so true. When Dave teases me about getting involved in stuff like this, I say, "If I don't, who will?"
Boud: I think I already have plenty of those! LOL!
Padre: Movie night with the dog is always fun!
Tasker: But thank goodness there are a few! I have to look up that Frankie Howard story. :)
Bohemian: Yes! I was reading online and some people said they'd been stopped by police while returning a shopping cart, on the theory they'd stolen it! I didn't want to risk that.
Sharon: It's worth watching, though as I said I was underwhelmed by Joaquin -- and I usually like him.
Chris: I couldn't push a shopping cart for four miles, negotiating curbs and street obstacles all the way!
Margaret: Well, I guess it depends on your definition of healthy. It'll keep you from starving, which is healthy in the short term. :)
Sabine: That sounds like a very Ikea experience! I wonder if that would still be allowed? Probably not.
Kelly: Well, if someone were using the Ikea cart (like a homeless person) I would have left it alone, because obviously it's needed in that case. Maybe that's what happened to your food pantry carts? (Not that that makes it any better for you, really.)
Mitchell: It did seem honest, but I think it would have been better with someone other than Ridley Scott directing.
Linda Sue: You should have seen how fast she ate it!
Damselfly: I think Bernard found the whole thing equal parts amusing and mystifying. Cab drivers must see a lot of weird stuff.
Susan: That's what I say! It's not like she eats it every day.
Chris: That's true. Probably not something that happens to your average shopping cart!
Bug: Ha! Pizza vibes!
Red: I think that's why some stores employ people to go round up their carts. In this case, though, it was a long way from home -- probably too far for a cart retrieval crew (assuming there is one) to find.
Allison: Thanks! Karma points, hopefully.
Susan: I probably wouldn't have taken the cart back if I'd had to have Bernard drive me two hours! Can you imagine the fare?!
Jim: Black cabs are surprisingly spacious! I was impressed too!
I ponder how many carts IKEA/Ikea loses on a year basis? They probably use it as a tax write-off, though I'm not certain British companies have that option.
I just watched a Secrets of the Dead episode where a team of scientists, finally verified Hannibal's route through the mountains and down into Italy. I found it very fascinating and even shocking at how difficult the route he chose was.
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