One of my earliest memories is of my experience riding in a shopping cart. I remember how cold the metal frame was and how my hands always tasted like iron after touching it. I used to hate those carts that didn't have the thin plastic butt pad, forcing me to sit on those uncomfortable thin metal bars of the pull out seat. My bottom would always be sore after a trip through the supermarket.

I don't remember how old I was, but eventually the little seat could no longer hold me, and my mother was forced to let me climb all over the cart, the basket, the front, the sides and the underside. She would never allow me in the basket once she started piling items in there, but still it felt like I could play in there for so long.

I loved hanging onto the front as we raced down the aisles. And when I knew she would be rounding a corner I would shimmy to the side and lean away from the turn, compounding the centripetal force. There were a couple times where I fell off on the wrong side of a turn and my mother would scold me, telling me to never hang off the edge again, but I always did until she threatened me with sitting in the pull out seat. That usually made me mad and I would sit on the underside with my legs crossed pouting. That is until I realized how fun it was skimming over the tiles of the supermarket, pretending I was driving the cart myself.

At the checkout line I would always be dragged from underneath the cart, but by then it didn't matter, I had plenty of candy bars and bubble gum to grab my attention. My mother would rarely ever get me these treats, but I knew that if I whined for them, I wouldn't have a chance to get any at all.