Well! I have been writing about Dirty Tops for over a year now and today it appears that they may be trying to pull their act together after all!

Taken over by new ownership about two years ago, progress at our location has been slow, invisible or perhaps in reverse. This week, though, what appeared to be a big repaving job took place in the whole gigantic parking lot- which even serves as a connecting street between Portage Rd and Main St.

One of the reasons for repavement has been discovered! A brand new electronic shopping cart system! This is just what we NEEDED here.

I’ve been commenting about the errant shopping carts in this area for six years. At one point, I tried to get the Niagara Arts & Cultural Center to sponsor a Shopping Cart Derby- but I think they thought it may be in poor taste. I have seen shopping carts moving furniture, laying sideways in a snow bank, hit by cars, being used as basketball hoops, barbecues in a cart, you name it! It is not unordinary to see a house with 4 or 5 shopping carts parked at it.

I’ve woken up to find one in front of my building! I’ve shoved them out into the street in anger, and politely parked them on the corner for the shopping cart whisperer to come by and corral. (I wonder if he is out of a job now?)

Okay, I won’t hold the suspense any longer, dear readers: Dirty Tops has installed an electronic device under their parking lot that causes the front wheels of the cart to stop moving if the cart is taken past yellow lines at the edge of the lot! WHAM!


That’s right! I walked in there today and carts were lined up all in a ROW. They were NEW. They had CUPHOLDERS. Just like the real Tops stores! I felt like a REAL PERSON! No more snow plow banged, rusted up, burned up, dented up carts.

Of course, this means I will lose government funding for my shopping cart Tag and Release program… but I am OKAY with that. After all, the safest and healthiest place for these carts is at Tops!

The Tops company did itself a big favor. Shopping carts are costly and drive down profits. They probably drive up grocery prices! No more paying the Shopping Cart Wrangler. He’d drive down the street slowly, quietly, in his 70’s vintage pick up truck… arm folded on the driver’s window sill, he’d spot an errant cart from houses away… swoop up on it, grab it and take it back the store. All the other captured carts lined up in shame in the back of his truck.

And don’t give me any CRAP about people who can’t afford a car or some other such bullshit nonsense! Listen to me… because you are poor does not give you reason to be a thief or a slob. Do you realize people much POORER than me take the damn taxi to the grocery store? (A luxury I could not afford). And I’d like to point out that the foldable shopping carts are available for PURCHASE for like $20. Maybe they can buy it with their cash portion of the food stamp benefit program.

Either way, thank you Tops. It’s lookin’ up!

I like to keep you all posted on the goings-on at Dirty Tops in Niagara Falls.

This weekend I was going to the grocery store and pulled up in the parking lot. I spotted a man loading a huge amount of returnables/recyclables into a shopping cart from the back of his pickup truck. The remarkable part of this story is that he was a very angry man.

I have no idea what set him off, (he appeared to be yelling at the younger man), but he screamed a trail of beautiful obscenities with every type of swear word available- dropping f-bombs and goddamns all over the place! It was so exciting as I love witnessing public breakdowns. (Having had them myself so often.)

So, in my excitement, I could only grab my camera and take a picture to capture the moment. Here he is marching across the parking lot, still bitching at the people in front of him, though they don’t seem too phased. But here he goes doing his part for Mother Earth and for Mother Fucker both!

Power to the FUCKING RECYCLABLES, you GODDAMN BASTARDS of SHIT ASS CRAP!

So, there’s a chain of supermarkets here in Western New York called Tops. They are actually very nice supermarkets. The usual American supermarket: everything anyone could want in such excess it’s practically vulgar. All available by just plopping it into a cart and having the means to pay for it.

So today’s story is about shoplifting. But shoplifting for a purpose. No, not for impulse, not for necessity, not for poverty, but shoplifting for justification and/or revenge.

Have I shoplifted? NO- but today I was a witness to it and it was quite invigorating.

Tops, in all of it’s normalcy, has a location in downtown Niagara Falls that leaves something to be desired. Because of that, we call it “Dirty Tops”. The name has stuck and many people know exactly where you are referring to when you say “Dirty Tops”. (In other words, not the clean, well-kept pretty Tops just outside the city in the ‘burbs). The shopping carts tend to be rusted and bent up because they are taken into the neighborhoods, left out in the weather and then retrieved by a man in a pick up truck to be taken back to the store. The store usually has a dirty floor. Wait- I’ve never seen the floor clean. Panhandling is a large problem in the parking lot. The lines at the checkout are very long because employee turn over is very high and they are usually understaffed. In addition, there are many fellow shoppers who are in various states of hygiene and dress.

At times I have stated that “I have too much dignity to continue to shop at Dirty Tops” after various scenes in the check out lines, or witnessing some spectacle in the store.

And yet I return- which leads to today’s story about shoplifting.

I “ran into” Dirty Tops. (That’s an oxymoron, you can’t get out in under a half hour because of the check out line). I picked up four items: milk, Hostess cupcakes, carrots and bananas. I walked to the Express Line, (Seven Items or Less). Of course, there was the usual people with a cart full of groceries ahead of me. Usually, they are the ones who are trying to pay for $300 worth of groceries with a food stamp card that has $7 worth of credit on it.

The Express Line is a great place of comraderie between fellow Dirty Tops shoppers. We usually discuss why we still come here and how nice the other Tops stores are. We discuss how we pay higher prices at that location due to the volume of food stamp customers and theft. We silently observe the people in line ahead of us, sometimes at a loss for words. As was the story again this afternoon.

It was taking a while for the line to move. It hadn’t moved in a long time. Everyone was sort of juggling their purchases as our arms were growing tired. Ahead of me was an African American woman just about my age with two items. In front of her was a very tall man with just two very large jugs of laundry soap. This was a silent line.

Psychically, tension started mounting. The longer we stood still, the heavier the air grew. The heavier our groceries got. We all were sort of fidgeting. Then, the man with the laundry soap, just stepped out of line and slowly but deliberately walked toward the door with the jugs of soap, and right out the exit. I wasn’t sure what I just witnessed. Part of me thought, “Oh NO a thief!” Part of me was excited. Part of me doubted what I just saw, there must be a legitimate explanation.

Then the lady in front of me spoke to the cashier from down the line, “Lady, he just stole that laundry soap! I saw him! He just walked out the door with that soap!” I nodded in agreement.

“Yes, I saw that too.” I just shrugged. She shook her head. It wasn’t an exciteable thing- it was just like, huh, go figure.

The cashier looked at us. Was she quite comprehending us? She looked down at the coupons in her hand and at her register. Then back at us.

The lady in front of me continued, “Damn right- he just walked out the door like ain’t nobody’s business”

The cashier then says, “well, I didn’t see him, I was just counting these coupons”. Hahahahah. We really weren’t looking for an explanation from the cashier.

The lady says, “Hey- ain’t no difference to me. I’m just helpin’ Tops.” She shrugs. As do I.

The cashier yells over her register to another cashier, “Hey- this man just walked out the door with laundry soap and he didn’t pay. I didn’t see him but those two did.” She points at us accusingly. I shrug again.

I say under my breath to the lady in front of me, “He’s gone already”.

The lady says loudly, announcing to the store, “He gone girl! He gone!” She shakes her head some more. “I’m just letting you know, ya know?”

Somehow this new excitement has gotten the line moving. Plus, you know, the shoplifter is gone so there’s one less person in line. So now we are closer to the cashier. She continues to offer some sort of defensive explanation that she was looking at coupons and didn’t see him. Then she offers that if she had seen him, she would have chased him down.

I implore her to not to that. That could get violent or ugly. That rescuing laundry detergent for Tops is not worth risking your life. I beg her, please do not chase a shoplifter, please just tell the manager immediately. Oh yes, she changes her mind, right, she would never chase a shoplifter.

Then she explains that the manager is going in the office right now to review the security tape at the door. That they will get that guy’s picture and watch for him and not allow him back in the store again. Yah right. Okay.

So I left the store, paying for my purchases. But I reflected on the way home. That man didn’t steal for necessity. He didn’t steal for compulsion. He was in line to pay. He just had enough. He just felt like he had waiting long enough to pay for the items. His act wasn’t violent- he didn’t run out the store.

He just had enough and walked out. Do I think he was justified? No.

Can I understand that breaking point? Yah.