Matt Manco, a reader in New Orleans, writes:
Second only to bathroom proximity, the main concern of Mardi Gras planning is how to get drinks to the parade. This year, our answer was my Sun Mountain Micro-Cart (thanks for the recommendation), which has been taking up space in my office while I recover from a herniated disc. With no golf in my near future and a long haul with a heavy cooler coming up, I started working on a harness system to take some stress off the cart and keep the beer in the cooler.
A friend of Manco’s, with a test load. Note the innovative use of the golf-bag stabilizer arms as a super-secure articulated cup holder. Also note that the cart is still furnished with golf tees, just in case.
This cooler (Go Tigers!) was the best fit of the options on hand. A few small bungee cords on each side and twenty-five feet of sturdy rope kept the cooler from sliding, slowing us down, or—worse—falling off the cart and shaking our beer. We were surprised that the Micro-Cart maintained most of its agility, despite the extra weight and the altered center of gravity. Turning took a little planning, and pushing it on cracked sidewalks was out of the question. The lack of maneuverability wouldn’t matter as much in a well-paved city, but New Orleans, being the unsettled swamp it is, will never have smooth roads.
Manco and his invention. The red bag is for recyclables.
Manco is a fan of a Mardi Gras parade organized by TitRex, a so-called “micro-krewe,” which, he writes, features “shoe-box-size designs that are meant to imitate, elevate, and irritate the creators of the much larger floats, which are pulled by tractors.” You can read more about TitRex here.
Manco continues:
Enough ice melted during the parade to allow us to lighten our load and free up the movement of the cart on the walk home, making two-wheel turns an option again. We saw several people pulling beer in red wagons, but none of those had cup holders, umbrella holders, koozie pockets, or handbrakes, so we’ll keep the Micro-Cart in action for another year.
This float is pedal-powered, by what appear to be long-tailed galley slaves. There may be a golf application, though probably not at this size.
Mardi Gras celebrants who were less inventive than Manco and his friends didn’t necessarily have to watch the parade sober. Here’s an industrial-grade version of the Micro-Cart beer trolley, operated by a street vendor and scowled at by a group of sign-bearing non-golfers:
Now, back to waiting for winter to end.
