-PJ
It’s also a test of what kind of society you live in.
“To return the shopping cart is an easy, convenient task and one which we all recognize as the correct, appropriate thing to do.”
The flaw here is that anyone can take issue with this statement and say “I don’t recognize it as the correct, appropriate thing to do. Stores hire cart wranglers to manage stray carts, and if everyone returned their carts, those folks would be out of a job and their families would starve”.
By sneaking an unsupported assumption into the problem, the creator left it wide open for that sort of chicanery.
It’s lame. Society is better described by Aldi’s quarter-release carts, here you have a motivation — to get your quarter deposit back — but Aldi goers know to have the quarter ready to simply hand to someone who is bringing back a cart and exchange a smile. Cooperation promotes capitalism.
It all depends on the store and the circumstances.
If possible, I take it to one of the corrals. I don’t have a car, so I’ve sometimes had to skip doing so in order to catch a bus. But I always try to make sure it’s out of the way and not going anywhere.
The other day, I did cross a busy road to pull an abandoned one out of said road. Its front wheels were off the curb, and the wheels weren’t locked, so I felt it was a Christian’s duty to get it out of the way.
Where I live in Texas almost everyone, I’d estimate over 99%, return shopping carts they have used to the store’s cart corral. And I and I suspect many others, will return the rare wayward cart someone else has left loose. Do you have any idea how much damage a wayward cart can do to a person or vehicle in Texas winds? Not too long ago I saw three or four carts together blown backwards out of the corral. Forty mph winds will do that. Yep, I got out of my car and wedged the carts safely in place.
Some stores do not have any or enough shopping cart corrals.
That is why the carts end up in the planters.
It is not you are not a good person it is the company is cheap and they know the carts will end up in the planters or an empty parking space.
The customer is trying to send a message to the store owners!
We are cart returners - 100%. If I’m ever made king I will declare not returning the cart to be a felony, punishable by 500 hours of community service in the local Wally World parking lot.