Setting off from the frozen-food aisle in Saint-Not-Like-The-Others, a shopping cart crossed the country without touching the brakes. Witnesses speak of a steely, “determined” gaze and a squeal “enough to make a can opener cry.”
It was 7:12 a.m. when the metallic object, until then discreet, suddenly shuddered in front of the peas freezer. The automatic doors opened “out of respect,” recount customers still in shock, and the cart hit the highway, barreling full tilt, gobbling up labels and receipts like victory laurels. As it passed, sparrows perched in the basket “to enjoy the draft.”
Its odyssey was immortalized from roundabout to roundabout (one taken 23 times “for the sheer joy of turning”), from rest areas to dizzying descents. In Château-Mécano, it overtook a jogger, who swears he heard the cart “shift gears.” At Pont-Linguine, it crossed a viaduct in a straight line “as if reading an invisible instruction manual.” Social media lit up: #TeamFrontWheel, #FullCaddie, #BasketLiberated.
Experts are adamant: it’s inexplicable, therefore necessarily scientific. The Observatory of Unexpected Rolling Objects (OORI) puts forward the hypothesis of a “cold-corridor resonance” between the frozen section and the outdoors. “We think it found the perfect angle of freedom, 42°, the exact angle of a slice of buttered toast when it refuses to land on the wrong side,” explains Dr. Fanchon Grelot, who says she is conducting tests with shopping carts weighted with melons.
The getaway ended at a bakery window, where the cart is said to have parked itself, nose to a mountain of chouquettes. The original store, relieved, promises a gilded chain and a platinum token “for exceptional service.” The cart, for its part, reportedly squeaked twice before coming to a stop: a universal sign, specialists claim, of a “well-deserved snack break.”
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