My Cart Crusade

I’ve made a decision. Shopping carts will be my cause. Everybody needs a platform, right? Katie’s got colon cancer. Alex P. Keaton’s claimed Parkinson’s. Pam’s got her paws into KFC. And if you opt not to choose a cause, you can be sure that one will find you.

I’m sure one day I’ll have a big fancy gala in order to raise money and awareness for my cause and I’ll be sure to invite you. But until then, I just gotta spread the word:

Since I began writing on behalf of buggies I’ve had several people tell me of their own tales of cart corralling: One reader said that she saw someone fail to put their cart in the cart corral so she immediately pushed the cart into the corral, all the while glaring at the perpetrator. Good job! Another said she confronted someone in the parking lot about it and the suspect said, “If I turn the wheels just right, it will stay in place. It’s okay because it’s not very windy today.”

Then I had a little run-in of my own. I was walking out behind a man who I just KNEW was not going to put his cart away. Do you know what he did? He positioned it right NEXT to the cart corral. So it wasn’t doing anybody any good—it could still roll into someone’s car (like mine)! I said to him, “Oh, come on. You couldn’t put it in there?” He said, “Huh?” I said, “Nevermind. I’ll just go put it in there myself,” (thinking he would then do the chore of taking ten extra steps to put it in the right place). Instead, he said, “Yeah, you do it.” I said, “REAL NICE!” to which he said, “Well if it bothers you so much!”

People, do I have to remind you of the consequences of not taking back your cart? Higher cost to grocery stores and therefore, higher costs to you! Potential damage to your precious car! And if that doesn’t convince you, how ‘bout plain old BAD karma?

Okay, one more little aside which is more about general bad parenting but it did take place in a grocery store:

I was in line at Kroger behind a father and son. They were buying TWO shopping carts full of groceries and the dad said, “Hey, we forgot Spam” (or something like that). So the kid picks up his SKATE BOARD, jumps on and rides through the store to get it. I expected the dad to say something fatherly like, “Don’t ride in the store, son! You could knock down jars, run into people or slip in the frozen aisle and bust open your head!” Instead he looks at me and says, “That skate board comes in real handy, doesn’t it?” And just when I thought this dad couldn’t get any worse he answered his cell phone while he was trying to pay for the two carts of groceries. He then had a long conversation with the other person. Oh, and when the cashier asked for his Kroger card, he didn’t have it but still insisted on using it by giving her his phone number. All while he was still on the phone. When he and his skateboarding son started to leave the dad turned to me and said, “Sorry if I held you up.” I guarantee Cell Mel and Boardin’ Bart left their cart in the parking lot. Both of them!

Like every charitable cause, we’ll need a good slogan: Here are some initial ideas:

-Do your part. Take back your cart.
-Push it out. Unpack. Push it back.
-Don’t want to pay a lot? Don’t leave your cart in the parking lot.

Please feel free to vote on the above or suggest your own. Together, we can lick this problem, one cart at a time.