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Montreal - Tony Trubiano's plans for a unique burial are going to hell in a handcart, which is almost - but not quite - what he had in mind. Mr. Trubiano, a self-made multi-millionaire and president of Cari-All Products, wants to go to his final rest under a marble replica of his signature product - a grocery cart. He's bought a choice plot in Repos St-Francois d'Assise cemetery in Montreal East. He's erected the headstone and a four-metre obelisk spelling out his name and topped the entire affair with a granite cart, push bar, four wheels and all. "That's my religion, making a better shopping cart", said Mr. Trubiano, 66. He began putting his affairs in order three years ago after doctors found four cancerous growths during a routine prostate exam. Since undergoing surgery, he's been given a clean bill of health, but the experience left him shaken. But the shopping-cart king's scheme for the afterlife has hit a speed bump. Last week, ten days after the headstone was installed, cemetery staff threw a garbage bag over the carving and management ordered Mr. Trubiano to take it down. "It hit me like a shot in the heart when I saw that garbage bag", an emotional Mr. Trubiano said during a tour of the grave yard. "It was like they said my whole life was garbage." In fact, Mr. Trubiano's life reads like something out of Horatio Alger. Over the past 40 years, he has turned his gift for tinkering into a $194-million-a-year business. Mr. Trubiano got his start repairing bent and errant wheeled carts for the Steinberg supermarket chain in 1956. His first workshop was in the basement of his home in Montreal East. "Sam Steinberg used to say that my maintenance work was what kept bananas at 10 cents a pound. I saved him a lot of money fixing carts that were on their way to the dump", he said. Today, Cari-All occupies a large manufacturing plant in Montreal East and employs more than 300. Cari-All buggies are found in grocery, big-box, and junior department stores all over North America. Since 1990, Mr. Trubiano's enormous wealth has bought him a home in Florida and a collection of speedboats, but it isn't enough to sway the unsmiling undertakers of Repos St-Francois d'Assise. Pat Penna, director of marketing, is leading the charge to rid the cemetery of the controversial cart. "He should have followed the rules like everyone else. If he'd asked us for permission to put up a cart, we'd have told him no", Mr. Penna said. "Any headstone design that isn't a religious motif has to be approved." He said that Mr. Trubiano's tribute, located close to the main gates and clearly visible from across busy Sherbrooke Street, disturbs what should be a "serious and sober place." Mr. Penna has offered to buy back Mr. Trubiano's family-sized plot, arrange to have the headstone moved to another cemetery, and even throw $1,000 cash into the bargain, just to make the matter disappear. Mr. Trubiano won't have any of it. He points to other unorthodox markers, including a fireman's helmet and an impressive carving of a dump-truck also found on the cemetery's lawns. He bought into Repos St-Francois d'Assise because his mother and brothers also have plots. He's promising to take the fight to court, and has already enlisted the help of his patron, Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost causes. Special to the Ottawa Citizen Montreal Gazette janet paterson - 51/41/37 - almonte/ontario/canada http://www.newcountry.nu/pd/members/janet/ [log in to unmask]