CARTS

201 – Monday, July 20, 2009

Pulling into the neighborhood supermarket parking lot this afternoon caused my internal emotional control mechanism to overheat – there were no less than thirty shopping carts, most of them abandoned helter-skelter all over the lined asphalt. At first, I was peeved at the lot attendants, but upon a scan in my rearview mirror, there was a young lady on her way out to retrieve the rogue rolling baskets. It is difficult enough to locate an available slot to park in our bustling grocery establishment, let alone to find one that affords some realistic probability to not have the quarter-panels and doors of our beautiful auto bashed in and scratched up by metallic monsters improperly deserted by patrons. To exacerbate the problem, the man in the car in front of me pulled into a spot, hit a cart and pushed it into a newer model Camry without so much as a glance and then side-stepped the same cart to head for the entrance – it truly would have been easier for him to push the cart back into the store than the energy he burnt dodging its presence which obstructed his path of ingress. I risk possibly offending one of you by this statement, however, I will pose this as a challenge to all of us for consideration – first, if each of us would pick up a cart from the lot to take in with us, the number of strays left to interfere would be drastically reduced. Secondly, if you just cannot find it within yourself to make that minimal effort, at least take the additional twenty seconds or so to place your cart in the racks that retailers strategically provide to make it safer and as easy as possible for us to organize the pick-up process that we, as consumers, always pay for, since the staffing for said task is a part of their operating overhead. Those stubborn and insolent readers might say that it is not their ‘job’ to do this – perhaps not, but we could all go an extra step to just provide some human kindness while thinking of others. Enough said!

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