Sitting in her SUV, we both blankly stared forward. We had made a rookie mistake. Had we learned anything from the caper movies we'd seen growing up, we'd have known to case the joint. Instead we rolled up expecting an easy heist. My friend assumed the role of getaway driver and my penchant for pilates made me the muscles of the operation.
Waiting for dark and fearing that it might be our last should things go awry, we sat down after work for a two-course dinner. We managed to keep the conversation on everything but the task before us.
"Should we say grace?" I asked as the steam rose from the bowl of penne puttenesca.
"Um, what do you normally do?
"I say grace." While making the sign of the cross, I bowed my head and mumbled "in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit..."
There's always that awkward moment before the first dinner with a friend of whether or not to give thanks. It's a sort of litmus test of religiousness. But this vignette was an apropos precursor of what was to happen later that night.
I hadn't fully planned out all the logistics of entering the Chiditarod this year. I witnessed the incredible fervor for the past two years and knew the basics: food drive/shopping cart race/pub crawl/blatant debauchery/open containers/incomparably good times. But I failed to consider how to acquire a cart. As in all heist films, I assembled my team. Roping in a coworker and buddies, the usual suspects crew was complete.
In order to legitimize putting this event on my resume, I took the role of project manager and quickly delegated tasks. One person was in charge of the fluids and food, another acquiring a cart, another costumes. After a college chum made a few phone calls, I learned that while store managers in the city were entirely willing to let us use a cart for a day, technology had advanced to the point of prohibiting carts from leaving the store's parking lot. Like an invisible fence for pets, shopping carts at some stores have wheel locks that activate if the cart starts a Brave Little Toaster-esque journey. With few other options and race day quickly approaching, my seamstress-to-the-stars friend and I embarked on a cinematic cart quest that would have made Cervantes proud.
Our shared upbringing in the Catholic church led us to select stores where we would put a small deposit to use the cart. In our mind, this semantics defense would be as close to air tight as we could muster. "But Saint Peter, we put a quarter in the cart. We simply rented the cart. We didn't steal it."
Donning our thieving clothes, we made a pact that if we go down, we go down together. We arrived at our target location, but instead of being greeted by unguarded carts and an empty parking lot, we found a few store workers still closing down the store. Upon closer inspection, the workers were right by the windows in the front of the store. Prime viewing for cart thieving. The scene reminded me of the blue guards in The Legend of Zelda. Your enemy makes their rounds and you have to time it perfectly to go undetected. But somehow we mistakenly selected the expert level of difficulty. There were no gaps in their surveillance and I was not ready to do an Army crawl. Fearing that we were drawing attention to ourselves sitting in the parking lot of a closed store we discussed what other locations we could try. Armed with her high tech gadget (phone), my accomplice found another possible place to rent a cart.
On the road again, I tried to channel my inner Steve McQueen. We arrived. It was go time. We needed a cart. The irony was not lost on me that we were "borrowing" a cart so that we could donate food for the hungry. Before the vehicle had come to a complete stop, I had undone my seatbelt (safety first) and prepared to dart for a cart. Not seeing any reporting eyes, I briskly walked with quarter firmly in hand toward the carts. Depositing my rental quarter, I freed the cart from its restraint and power walked back to the car repeatedly mouthing the words "POP. THE. TRUNK." Then trying to use my legs and not my back, I hoisted the cart into the back of the car. For those unaware, carts are hella heavy.
It didn't fit. Pushing to no avail, my driver gave it a pull and I lowered the trunk, but it wouldn't latch. By this time my heart rate had exceeded that of Lindsay Lohan on a binge. Sprinting back into the car, I shouted "DRIVE!" In a desolate lot with low light--it would have made good cinema--we maneuvered the cart fully into the car. At this moment, we took a picture of our glee-filled faces and high-fived.
Cart acquired. Sadly no churches were open for us to make a confession.
As soon as we completed the race, the cart was returned to its home and we said five Hail Mary's.
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