Remote View
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159 comments
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The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do. To return the shopping cart is objectively right. There are no situations other than dire emergencies in which a person is not able to return their cart. Simultaneously, it is not illegal to abandon your shopping cart. Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it. No one will punish you for not returning the shopping cart, no one will fine you or kill you for not returning the shopping cart, you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart. You must return the shopping cart out of the goodness of your own heart. You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.
A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it. The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.
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Personally I think shopping carts are the penultimate litmus test. Returning a shopping cart requires effort, albeit a miniscule amount of effort. The ultimate litmus test is litering. It requires exactly zero effort to not throw your trash on the ground or out your car window. To me, littering practically screams, "I don't give a shit about anyone but myself. I have the self control of a toddler at bed time and I want everyone to know it which is why I throw my shit on the ground like a total fucktard."
I'm not really a confrontational person but I have rolled down my window and yelled at people for throwing their cigarette butts on the ground. You would think some people were raised in a goddamn barn.
I may feel a little strongly about this issue.
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But there is a penalty for littering. Some people might refrain from littering not because it's the right thing to do, but because they don't want a fine.
The lack of repercussions for being a scumbag and abandoning your cart is what makes it a good test.
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If you're offended by a cigarette butt on the ground, holy fuck, you should have been around in the 70s. We have come so far and so fast.
When I was a kid, chunking your fast-food trash, any trash, out the window was perfectly normal. The sides of highways were covered in trash.
Further to go, of course, but I've seen solid progress.
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Is there a version of this that includes something about Aldi and other pay to return shops?
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Aldi's deal is more about getting people to return carts all the way to the front entrance so that they don't have to pay employees to retrieve them from the corrals.
Of course, with their parking lots being small to begin with, I'm not so sure it'd make much of a difference (see also: Lidl, with the same size parking lot but no 25¢ locking carts).
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I like how this is a funny joke, but also true.
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What you get when no one is in charge. There are always people who will abuse a common trust. People will litter within feet of a trashcan or leave a cart a few spaces from a cart corral.
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It might be because I've been slamming IPAs this afternoon but that's the best example of "it's funny because it's true" I've seen in a while.
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You're missing the crucial part where the store is for profit. There's no reason to provide free labor to corporations.
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Ladies and gentlemen, exhibit A
Your misguided attempt at rebellion against capitalism in reality only hurts the grunt that has to pick up after your inconsiderate ass. You think your behavior actually costs the company anything? You think they hire an extra person because of people like you? No. You just make some poor sap at the bottom of the pecking order that much more miserable
Congratulations on making yourself feel righteous at the expense of your fellow plebs
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If your cart catches a breeze and dents my car then you're now providing profit to a body shop. Putting your cart away is about not costing random people hundreds of dollars. And it saves the teen making minimum wage from chasing it down in the snow.
Fuck the grocery store, of course. But if you want to screw them over then there are better ways to do it, and with less collateral damage.
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Where I am, to unlock a cart, you have to insert a coin, and afterwards, to get the coin back, you have to lock the cart to another cart (that's hopefully part of the pile). It mostly works.
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They stopped doing this at a lot of places, but after years of having this coin system it seems people are decently behaved.
But i'm certain it's a matter of time until they realize they can just stop giving a shit.
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Aldi's (used to?) do it in the US, but it's the exception.
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I've seen a lot of places here drop this system. I have no idea why. Then again, you could also just go to the info and get a plastic thing to unlock them.
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Leave it in the "Reserved for Law Enforcement" spot
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This is a benefit of having kids. You can tell them to go put the cart away for you.
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Depends on their age. They were the reason I didn't take the cart back when they were very little. I didn't want to leave them in the car and go to the other side of the parking lot.
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Grumbling this to myself for the thousandth time in a Costco parking lot, I looked out at the sea of parked cars and realized that the majority of people probably DO put their carts away responsibly, otherwise the dozen carts I saw askew would've been a hundred-fold.
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On a side note, my grandmother is always thankful when someone leaves a shopping cart by the parking space, because she leans on them to help her walk, and it's often hard for her to walk the distance from the car to the stall.
Generally though, yes, return your cart psycho
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Not returning your cart should be the one and only criteria for the naughty list.
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Interestingly, there was a time not too long ago where there was no such thing as returning your carts. No place to put them, and store employees fetched them. I always return my cart so it doesn’t blow away and smash into someone’s car - but I bet a lot of boomers think nothing of leaving it wherever - because that’s kind of what you did.
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I'm sorry but there's No way even boomers get a pass. It's been expected to return your cart to the stall for longer at least 30 years. In some places you even had to put $1 into the cart to use it and got it back when you returned it ($1 was also a lot more 25 years ago).
There's really no excuse for not returning the cart today and anyone who fails at this simple task of self-governance is no better than animal.
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But who expects you to return it? The company that owns the store? What if I don't return it in protest of their corporate greed? Who are they to make me do manual labor for free after I just paid them‽ Back in my day they would load your car for you. Lazy company CEOs are too busy counting money to keep their parking lots in order! lol
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I used to work bringing in carts at a store and it was the best part of my job. I see this as just a cost of doing business for these giant stores that need carts to begin with, although I always put my cart back. I can understand if the thing is way far away though. Who cares? Let them pay someone a fair wage to keep track of them. We know that will never happen though so you need to bring it back to be considerate to other shoppers. Giving the store free labor lol
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Thanks for saying this. Folks that get enraged at the cart thing have something else going on emotionally they need to deal with. Like, the world is out of their control and it’s going to shit so their mind goes to exerting any sort of control it possibly can in order to compensate for their general powerlessness. What we need to do is think hard how to affect what change we can and do that and learn to let go of stuff outside our influence.
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Don't be a lazybones
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That hero is going to actually get shot one day.
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Isn't his vest bulletproof? I hope we don't find out
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It's called the "cart corral". I just love that.
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I've heard of golden corral. I don't want to eat at cart corral.
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When I worked at a store we had two sizes of shipping cart and they couldn't interlock but people would force it anyway or back them in to engage the coin latch. The cart sheds became a total mess and the store was too understaffed and the manager often ended up doing the cars, badly, in favor of pulling people off indoors cleaning or w.e. I often left the cart over a parking separator brick so it can't roll into cars, but doesn't add to the jumbled mess in the shed.
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we had two sizes of shipping cart... and the store was too understaffed
That's the store's own damn fault.
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More head office but yeah. They also changed the checkouts from Linux to windows and decided self checkouts could only have one human attendant.
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Poetry
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+1 for creating your own stall out of an abandoned trolly, even if it goes across the entrance or a disability parking spot
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I've heard of Elf on the Shelf?
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Or people who push them to remote spots like bus stops and abandon them there. And more and more accumulate...
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My local Big Blue Store has a cart corral right next to the bus stop, which I actually think is cool. I hate the Big Blue Store make no mistake, but that one particular thing they do is cool.
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Cart near the mart.
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I like that "elf" is the old name of our local petroleum company.
I can totally see them going "is that all you're buying to heat your home? You know you didn't drive a lot last year..."
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Cart narcs out
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Hey buddy, when I go to a waffle house bathroom and find a discarded needle I don't make a huge fuss.
I think what I'm trying to say it comes with the territory.
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lol - these comments..
What the fuck rocks….
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I'm curious? Do you also do this at Costco? The one I usually go only has two corrals and they are on the extreme sides of the parking lot, everybody leaves the carts between parking spaces. Abby other store I definitely put the cart in it's place
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I don't mind if they just leave it in the parking lot, there are employees who will come around and gather them up.
The problem is when I find a Walmart card in the middle of nowhere
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Yeah, but when you leave it in the middle of the parking lot you're senselessly adding more work for the poor employee who probably is paid minimum wage to bring the carts back into the building...
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They also employees who will clean up feces that are in the aisle but that doesn't mean you should take a shit on the floor in the produce section.
Leaving carts in the spaces blocks access to spaces, leaves carts that can be blown into parked spaces, and causes extra work for employees. Just walk your cart back. Spoiler: if you don't want to walk far, just park next to the cart return. It's not that hard.
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The wind could also blow it into someone's car, though
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I guess I don't live in a windy area. I've never seen or heard of that happening.
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Here in Philippines its expected for you to leave it be at the parking spot. Someone from the Mall/ Supermarket management will return it. There is someone doing a dedicated job for it. Not sure if it's a bad courtesy in here. But you would be probably robbing someone's job for it. The same is also with going up and down with elevators. Though not common in office buildings. I guess this probably started in USA as a cost saving idea for the companies, similar to how they convince us that jaywalking is bad and not tipping is bad.
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In Europe the carts are chained together. You have to put in a coin (50c, 1 or 2€) to get one. You get the money back we you bring it back to the chain. No big deal. Everyone brings their cart back. No idea why American supermarkets refuse to do this..
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Where I live more and more supermarkets don't do this, especially since the pandemic. The coin mechanisms are expensive to maintain, and it turns out that the overwhelming majority of people were raised correctly and will return the cart anyway. Where else would you put the cart anyway? In the parking lane? Surely maneuvering your car around a stray shopping cart can't be more convenient than just putting the cart back!
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Keeping demeaning, low-paying jobs for the sake of those jobs existing so someone desperate can take them is peak late-stage capitalism.
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There is still someone that grabs them. They are just collected in one place rather than looking everywhere for them. It also makes it better for people with nicer cars that don't run the risk of random carts hitting their car.
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I return my cart if they have returns conveniently placed near where I am parked, but otherwise my feelings are well summed up by Zorg.
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Zorg was an asshole, and his story about the broken glass is a fallacy. (Look up: ‘parable of the broken window’)
If it’s too inconvenient to return the cart after borrowing it from the store, then don’t borrow it.
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I didn't borrow it, it was provided to me as a service for consideration. The consideration is the not-insignificant markup on all the food I bought from them.
The practical reality is you will never get 100% participation in cart returning and the store will therefore always need people to run the parking lot. They know this, I know this, everybody knows this. Since this is the reality, you pay for the employee to return your carts whether you politely return them or not. Or did you imagine that the grocery store provides carts for everyone out of their deep-seated sense of altruism?
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Hypothetical: do you leave your triplet infants in the unsupervised car to return the cart a minute away as to not be deemed an animal by people that didnt see your kids, or do you return the cart then try to carry three infats back and put them in the car? Not everything is black and white.
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Buckle your kids in lock your doors. Walk it to the nearest secure spot (where it won't roll). Return to car.
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I agree with this. Safe spot is nearest pothole/planter not in the way of other cars. The whole idea that if you don't return them to the corral makes you subhuman, my horse ain't that high folks.
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159 comments