One day...

...two little boys rapidly tapped their pencils to their desks, irritating Mrs. Smith as each sound rebounded on the classroom’s walls. Jay and Ben impatiently waited for the big, round clock to mark 3:30, the magic numbers that indicated their freedom. As soon as they hear the loud {{BUZZ}} they ran as fast as they could, filled with joy as they sprinted towards Jay’s mom’s mini van.
Jay had invited Ben to his house. This was not the first time Ben went to his friend’s house in the school year; these boys had been inseparable since first grade. This afternoon Jay’s mom had an important meeting at work, so she wouldn’t be staying with the boys. Instead, she paid a babysitter to come over.
Jay and Ben weren’t very pleased with this idea; they were 4th graders, soon-to-be 5th graders! But as soon as Jay’s mom left the house and the babysitter came, they knew they had a fun afternoon ahead of them. The babysitter had warned them that she would be doing important work that was “none of their business,” so she could not be distracted.
They played some Wii tennis, navigated YouTube, watched some TiVoed shows, played a couple of foosball matches…and then they were bored. They were sick of being indoors. The day was pretty and they wanted to go outside. Since Jay lived in Villanova Street, a couple of blocks away from Preston Center, they knew they could walk to the plaza and spend some time there.
They tiptoed to the room where the babysitter was “studying” and only found her asleep, with drool coming down from one side of her mouth and a chemistry book laying open on the carpet floor. She was probably on her 5th dream and would not wake up soon. Jay and Ben rushed quietly to the door and breathed fresh air.
Jumping around, collecting sticks, and kicking stones from the ground, Jay and Ben eventually made it to Tom Thumb. They had forgotten their money, so they couldn’t buy the delicious Ben & Jerry’s that their mothers bought whenever they had play days. They instead decided to challenge themselves: they would steal a grocery cart. To their surprise, they succeeded in their little “mission impossible.”
No one noticed the two little kids entering the grocery store, so they grabbed the cart and ran as fast as they could towards Villanova, laughing so hard that their stomachs hurt. They knew they couldn’t take it all they way back to Jay’s house, so they just left the evidence of their mischievousness on the sidewalk and kept going their way before the babysitter woke up.

Today I was walking to my house (I rarely do, I enjoy the commodities of my car) when I saw at a distance this unusual artifact obstructing my way. Why was it impeding my peaceful walk of the day? Who had put it on the sidewalk?

If I only knew...