Trash Theft Auto: Teen Swipes Motorized Shopping Cart From Porter Wal-Mart, Attempts Two-County Odyssey

Czichos should have gone all out and opted for the family-sized version.

So the 18-year-old sat down on one of Walmart's motorized shopping carts, revved it up, and pointed it toward home, 35 miles away in Jersey Village.

Montgomery County Precinct 4 deputy Ford found Czichos at a gas station about a quarter of a mile from the Walmart. According to the Montgomery County Police Reporter, the teenager had stopped there to plug the drained shopping cart in to a power outlet, on what promised to be the first of many such stops should he have somehow managed to ride undetected all the way down the Eastex Freeway and halfway across the northern edge of Greater Houston along Beltway 8.

Both Ford and Walmart failed to see the humor in this George Jones-esque state of affairs. The Possum's drunken whiskey run on his riding mower has been credited as the Mumber Seven Redneck Moment of All-Time. Czichos's flight is almost in the same league; after all, it involves a motorized shopping cart from Walmart, and not just any Walmart, but the one in Porter. But since Czichos was presumably sober and merely trying to get home, and not smashed and trying to get even drunker like Jones, we still have to give Jones the edge here, even though Czichos was hoping to drive about four times as far to Jersey Village.

Czichos was arrested and reportedly initially charged with theft, but according to records on the official Montgomery County Sheriff's Department Web site, he is now charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle - a motorized shopping cart, it bears repeating.

At press time, Czichos still languishes in the Montgomery County Jail, awaiting someone to post his $1500 bond and take him back to Jersey Village. Preferably, in an enclosed vehicle with a top speed of more than 3 mph and a cruising ranger of more than a quarter-mile.