There are a hundred grocery carts lined up outside the store, nested together in a gleaming metal train, and somehow you always pick the broken one. Not obviously broken. It looks fine in the line. It rolls fine for the first three feet. Then you cross the threshold, the automatic doors sigh shut behind you, and the truth reveals itself: one wheel has decided to go its own way.
You know the wheel. It is the one that spins in lazy circles when it should roll straight, flutters like a shopping-cart caster with stage fright, and makes a sound somewhere between a squeak, a rattle, and a small shopping-related alarm. Thwip, thwip, thwip, all the way down the produce aisle, announcing to everyone that yes, you got that cart again.
The steering is where the real comedy lives. You push straight, the cart drifts left. You correct right, the cart considers your suggestion and drifts left harder, aiming with quiet determination for a display of stacked soup cans. Driving it becomes a full-body job: one hand steering, one hip braced, leaning into every turn like you are docking a boat instead of buying eggs and pasta.
Everyone tells themselves the same lie in the parking lot: next time I will test it first. And you do. Next time you pull a cart free, give it a little test roll, wiggle it, listen for the telltale flutter. It passes. They all pass in the parking lot. The wobbly wheel is patient. It waits until you are committed, until the cart is half full and swapping it out would mean an embarrassing transfer of groceries in front of witnesses.
That is the trap, of course. Early on, you could go back. By the time the wheel is squeaking loud enough to turn heads in the cereal aisle, you have milk, bread, and a frozen pizza riding in there. Abandoning ship means unloading everything into a new cart while a stranger pretends not to watch. So you stay. You always stay. Sunk cost has never sounded so squeaky.
And here is the mystery no store has ever solved: why is it always exactly one wheel? Never two, never all four. Three wheels are model citizens. One wheel has seen things, hit a curb at speed sometime in 2019, and never recovered. Somewhere there must be a repair budget, a little form someone could fill out, a guy with a wrench. Instead the cart goes back into the line, wheel still fluttering, ready to find its next victim — who, statistically and spiritually, will also be you.
So here is to the wobbly wheel: the smallest possible problem that can follow you through an entire errand, turning a ten-minute shop into an upper-body workout with sound effects. Next time it finds you — and it will — take a second in the parking lot, give that wheel a spin, and listen closely. Thwip means walk away. Your groceries, your ankles, and your dignity will thank you.