I always return my grocery cart to the spot provided for them. I put my groceries in the trunk, place my purse in there, close the trunk, lock the car, put my car keys in my pocket and walk the cart over to where it belongs - even if it’s several rows away. Sometimes another elderly person will be walking from their car to the store and will want the cart I’m returning to use for support. Works for everyone.
I always return it for a bunch of reasons.
1. It annoys the hell out of me when carts are just put anywhere, especially if it means I need to move it to park or get out of my parking spot. So I’m not about to do something that I don’t want other people doing (the old ‘do-unto-others’).
2. My parents and the Navy drummed into me the concept of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’.
Not valid. The expectation of what to do with your shopping cart varies regionally. Some places actually send someone out WITH you to put your groceries into your car; is accepting such help unethical? Why is it unethical to accept the help of someone hired to round up your grocery carts?
In the last couple of decades, the trend has been more and more places scattered throughout the parking garage to return the carts to. When I see those, which is almost all the time now where I live, I take the hint. But they still round carts up FROM those places to bring into the store. So is using those only partly ethical?
A better test would be people who leave groceries they’ve changed their mind about on the shelves in the wrong place. If the groceries are spoilable, you’re positively evil.
I relocated from South Fla to Charleston SC two years ago. I was immediately struck noticing the absence of lose carts in the grocery parking lots unlike So Fla. People here are polite. Yet to experience the road range frequently encountered in So Fla.
except there are people like me who leave shopping carts where they land, in order to guarantee employment to people who will need it. By doing the work of others, one diminishes the opportunities for low ability employment which is sorely needed in our culture and explicated by Murry in various books.
If that makes me evil, I guess I am, but I see others who act like lemmings to be thoughtless and easily led.
Character. It is what you do when nobody is looking.
I only care about finding my car. Now that I'm really old, people are always offering to help me find my car. lol
Its not illegal not to return the shopping cart nor is it immoral. God will not judge you based on your shopping cart behavior. 95% of the time I dutifully return the shopping cart but occasionally I leave it propped on a curb or parking lot pole. I don’t steal it or abuse it. God doesn’t care.
I agree this WAS a good test.
Now that people are watching, the test is invalid.
Fall back is whether a person picks something up at a store, changes his or her mind and either returns it from whence it came or just puts it wherever.
I didn’t exactly date much, as I had an arranged marriage, but one arrangement that didn’t work was a lady who would just dump products wherever in a store. I broke it off. She ended up (a decade later) getting arrested for fraud.
EXCEPT ... some of us appreciate finding a cart in the parking lot. After cervical spine surgery a year or so back, I tend to wobble when I walk. So I really appreciate finding a cart next to my handicap parking spot. And the same for my wife.
Me, I take the shopping cart and load it with my possessions that were “borrowed “ from somebody else and then sleep on the sidewalk in front of somebody’s business.
Is that wrong?
I like to sell my shopping carts to the homeless- doesn’t that make me a good person?
Simplistic but accurate, in my opinion.
Sadly, so much civility has disappeared from our society. Children who are not taught to be considerate and respectful grow up to be inconsiderate, self-centered adults.
I like it when people leave carts in the lot. I grab it then I don’t have to pull on out of the tangle mess near the store.
In a thread I read yesterday, a Freeper said he used the “how do you treat waitstaff” as a metric. I think that works, too.
I just always thought that I was providing job security for the cart retrievers and baggers.
Nope…too many variables.
Some parking lots have return areas in every row, no more than 4 or 5 car lengths away. I will return the cart.
Some parking lots have return areas every other row. If I parked in a row with a return area, I will return the cart. If not, screw ‘em.
Some parking lots have no return areas and expect you to shlep the cart all the way back to the store. If I was parked in a close spot, okay, but if I was parked out in bum f Egypt there ain’t no way I am walking 100 yards back to the store and 100 yards back to my car. Not happening.
I put it in the buggy thing in parking lot or take back in store. One of my pet peeves is a buggy blocking a parking place I want or one rammed up against my vehicle🙄
I always return my cart. Always have
One is lazy if you dont
As usual between the poles there is an alternative. If you don’t return your cart do you at least abandon it where it doesn’t inconvenience others?