The Shopping Cart

[84porsche]

After seeing the thread about Costco, I was remembering my last trip about a week ago and why on God's green earth people can't take their damn shopping cart back to the stall that says "Shopping Carts Here." Have we as Americans become so lazy that we expect someone to clean up after us?

Help me understand?

[Danny_Ocean]

Originally Posted by 84porsche

Have we as Americans become so lazy that we expect someone to clean up after us?

You've answered your own question.

(Amid strange looks, I always return my cart)

[Tidybuoy]

Originally Posted by Danny_Ocean

You've answered your own question.

(Amid strange looks, I always return my cart)

For the record: I always return the cart all the way back to the store. Not because I'm a do gooder but because it's excercise. I also park very far away (mayby that's why non of my cars have a single ding).

[varmint]

[cashflyer]

I take the cart to the stall, line up the carts properly, and make sure they're all pushed in completely.

They say it's part of my OCD.

[widgeon13]

+1 on the above!

I have seen people pull into a parking space and if a cart is in the way they just push it out of the way w/ the bumper of the car, even if it hits another car. Pretty stupid behavior. Needless to say the Pcar doesn't go to Costco when we shop there. I usually park out in the cheap seats and hike in, better exercise anyway.

I have found that NE is notorious for ********* behavior in parking lots. Actually had a person pull so close to me one day I could not open the driver's door on my car.

[Rick Lee]

In Germany they have the carts chained together and you have to put in 1 Euro to get one and you have to return the cart and plug the key in from another cart to get your coin back. Seems to work pretty well. I've never seen a rogue shopping cart in a parking lot there.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts

Sorry, I'm one of those. I usually have my kid with me, and I'm usually in a *big* hurry, and I don't want to leave him in the car alone...

-Wayne

Leave kids in cart, unload stuff, take cart back, carry kids to car. Simple, I do it with two every time I shop alone.

Sorry, that's one of my pet peeves. It's right up there with throwing trash on the ground. Pure, unmitigated laziness. Nothing makes me madder than coming out from a store and finding a cart next to my car.

[allaircooled]

This is why I had to replace a trim piece below my headlights on my BMW. Was at a lowes and noticed it was cracked and at the exact height of the bottom lip of their carts. I was so pissed. I make sure to walk my carts back.

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by Tidybuoy

For the record: I always return the cart all the way back to the store. Not because I'm a do gooder but because it's excercise. I also park very far away (mayby that's why non of my cars have a single ding).

I do the same, got my first ding in the DD weeks after moving to CA, after driving it in TX for 5 years without a mark on it.

Americans are on average, fat, stupid and lazy

[peppy]

I try to park next to the cart stall. Yeah, I like dents in my car.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by Tidybuoy

For the record: I always return the cart all the way back to the store. Not because I'm a do gooder but because it's excercise. I also park very far away (mayby that's why non of my cars have a single ding).

I do the same, and I generally grab a cart as I walk INTO the store and corral it, even if I don't plan on using a cart. It's no real effort, invariably there's 5 or 6 carts roaming within 10 feet of every open parking spot anyways.

Even better is the accumulation of dead carts a block away from the stores. They all have the "wheel lock" thing now where it freezes a wheel when it's taken away from the store. Well, these people will make it about a block more, shoving this incapacitated cart sown the sidewalk before they give up. Heck, the local ghetto trash is less lazy than the white yuppies, they shove a dead cart down the street when the yuppies can't even put it back in the corral!

[arerrac]

Pictures are always good!

[cgarr]

These same people usually have sofas and blocked up cars sitting in their front or their trailers too.

[legion]

The Schnucks (high-end grocery store) is the closest grocery store to some ghetto apartments here in town. The residents of those apartments have a habit of using the carts to push there groceries home (about a ¼ mile away and across a very busy street) and leaving the carts in their apartment building's parking lot.

Yes, the Schnucks has to send their employees to gather the carts up when they start running low.

[DonDavis]

That irks me too. It takes all of 45 seconds to return a cart and people can't find the time?

Wayne, sorry, but you need to reorganize some things if your schedule is that whacked.

A few years ago, I was at Home Depot in the Volvo 8-fitty and parked far from anything. It was a fairly breezy day and when I came out and there was a cart rolling across the lot headed straight for the car. It was too far for me to run and stop it and I had to watch it nail the right rear door. Put a nice baseball sized ding in an otherwise perfect door. I was just glad I was NOT in the 911.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by 84porsche

Have we as Americans become so lazy that we expect someone to clean up after us?

Uh... let me think for a second... that would be...

YES!

Look at the parking lot of any fast food restaurant, it is littered with food wrappers... why? Because people use the drive through then pull into the parking lot to eat. That is right, they are too lazy to park the car then get out and walk into the restaurant to eat. Then of course they are also too lazy to get out of the car and walk five feet to one of the garbage cans in the parking lot so they just throw there trash out of the window!

I fear the human race as a species is doomed to die of stupidity.

[t951]

If you push the carts back then you are depriving some worker of his job.....
I realize if he wasn't there maybe the prices could go down, but they won't. Plus, if he is pushing carts he is either a young teenager, or someone who is so down on his luck that we shouldn't take his job away....

Just another way to look at it....

[911boost]

I always return them, especially at The Home Depot. Mainly because I cant ever seem to find one of the bigger ones when I need it to take out lumber, etc.

On a somewhat related note, how many of you have been to liquor stores that have the mini-me grocery carts? They look exactly like normal one, but are about half size. It always cracks me up.

Bill

[Jagshund]

I admit having to return the carts to their stall - mostly because I know how easy the wind can carry those suckers across the lot into innocent car doors. And because it's the only exercise I get aside from flexing my massive intellect.