Hepcat calls them granny carts, y’know those metal shopping cart everyone uses. And they’re not just for elderly women, Hepcat. Everyone uses them these days. At the Coop, for laundry. for Seventh Avenue shopping. You name it, they come in real handy. And for $35 dollars at Tarzian — it’s bargain. Who knew? It can hold up to 200 pounds and has a padded handle.

Why did we wait so long. The answer is: I dunno. But I guess I do. Hepcat likes to do EVERYTHING himself. He’s fancies himself a manly man. He carries a  30 lb laundry bag on his back like Atlas and takes it to the Seriously Nice Equadorian Laundry three blocks away. Needless to say, it’s not the best thing in the world for his back. But Hepcat would never succumb to a granny cart. The humiliation – the stigma. He grew up on a farm – he’s no sissy man.

Lately, Hepcat has been, shall we say, a tad negligent on the laundry front. With good reason. Since starting at the Edgy Startup he’s working longer hours. No longer is he the man about Park Slope available to pick up children, laundry, Food Coop items.

No. It’s nose to the Manhattan grindstone for Hepcat. And the family’s laundry has suffered.

The nice lady at the Seriously Nice Equadorian Laundry on 6th Avenue calls us at home: "The laundry. The laundry. It’s ready," she says. Some nights he’s not even home yet and I feel bad because they need to make room for new laundry bags.

Yesterday, OSFO and I were sitting at a window table at the Mojoise and a lightbulb went off as I stared at Tarzian across the street. BY GOLLY, I said to OSFO, WE’RE GOING TO BUY A SHOPPING CART!

As you can imagine, OSFO loved the idea imaging the laundry cart as the perfect OSFO Transport Vehicle. Off we went. "What color do you want?" the guy at Tarzian asked. We wanted bright red or blue. Alas, they were out of everything but black.

"Black is just fine," I said. Yesterday, we transported pounds of laundry to the Seriously Nice Equadorian Laundry and brought our comforters, sheets, bedding and other "lice scare" items back home.  Easy. Easy. Easy. No back strain. No fatique. No discomfort. Just pushing the cart with a big bag ‘ o laundry. Hey, what’s the big deal?

I said to the nice woman: "I am so sorry it took me so long to pick up the laundry but my husband…" "Is he sick?" she asked. "No, no," I assured her. "He’s working in the city now and he gets home too late to pick up the laundry." I say. "Oh, that’s okay," she said sympathetically.

She jumped to the conclusion that my husband might be sick. I remembered that years ago her husband was ill and out of commission for a few months. She had to do all the heavy lifting, the weighing of the big laundry bags alone. She’s a strong woman. Very strong.

NOTE: A local children’s book celebrity author, Mo Willems, wrote a book about one of the machines at the  Seriously Nice Equadorian Laundry. Read Gersh Kuntzman’s piece about it in the Brooklyn Papers.