Cart games

So I was leaving the grocery store the other day, pushing my cart toward my car. A large gust of wind came through, sending a rogue grocery cart out into the middle of the lot. Two guys in front of me, walking toward their car, deftly sidestepped the cart and continued to their vehicle.
Common courtesy, I decided, was dying again. While you may not think grocery carts are the great social barometer, I think they are. And if you doubt me, think of this: If it were not true, why would it be in print in a newspaper? Game, set, match, checkmate.
But allow me to explain. You see, grocery cart courtesy is one of the most basic things you can do. You get a cart, you use a cart, you return a cart. Seems simple. But when common courtesy begins to break down, the process, too, starts to crumble, mainly in the third step: the return.
And let me just spell it right out for you: If you find me a legitimate reason to voluntarily abandon your cart in the unoccupied parking place next to your car, I will give you $1 million. (Editor’s note: No, he won’t.) And the reason I am making such a bold offer is that there is NEVER a reason to voluntarily leave your cart in the parking space next to yours, only to either block someone trying to park or dare someone to try and gently nudge it out of the way with their bumper, which is a bad idea all around, but yet people still feel the need to try, never mind they have zero ability to steer and will undoubtedly send the cart crashing into the Nissan Sentra parked nearby. (I will now allow for everyone to catch their breath from that sentence.)
Some of you may think this is not that big of a deal. Guess what? You’re wrong. It’s a huge deal. Because it symbolizes something: Abandoning your cart shows that you don’t give a lick about what inconveniences other people. You don’t care about the car that may get dinged when a wind gust sends the rogue cart reeling. You don’t care about the driver who has to keep circling the lot because your abandoned cart is taking up a parking place. You don’t care about the kid out there having to go to all ends of the parking lot because you can’t wheel the cart over to the corral. In short, it’s just plain rude.
And when you see a cart go rolling to the middle of the road, blocking cars and creating a hazard, when you merely step around it, well, you’re all the things the person who abandoned it are and then a little more.
I know you probably think I am being a wee bit sensitive about this. After all, you are probably saying, aren’t there other things you could worry about? To which I say this: Won’t you think of the children? I am not sure how carts affect children, but I am sure there is a link, and I will not sit idly by while you allow a generation to disintegrate.
So anyhow, back to the parking lot the other day. Because I am not a big fan of being beaten up in a parking lot, I did not say anything to the two guys who walked around the cart. (For what it’s worth, I have never been beaten up in a parking lot, but I pretty well guess I wouldn’t like it. I’ve never been gored by a bull, but I feel confident saying I am not a fan of it.) Instead, I took the wayward cart and pushed it along with mine, forming a mini-herd. I noticed one of the guys looked over his shoulder and saw me grab the cart. While it is possible that he had a twinge of guilt over not having moved the cart, I think it is far more likely that he was thinking, “Say something, sweater-boy. We haven’t beaten someone in a parking lot in days.”
I find myself doing this on occasion. (Not the nearly getting beaten up in a parking lot part.) Whenever I am at the store, if someone has left a cart sitting in an open space, in the middle of the road, on top of another car, etc., I bring it back in. And, whenever I take a cart out to the car, I make sure it’s put in the corral. If I have the kids and a race car cart, I make a point of getting it back inside the store, lest an unexpected rain come up and some poor unsuspecting parent, thinking they had reached the home base of the race car cart, plop their kid in, only to hear a splash. Then, one of two things will happen: (1) The child will be very unhappy with your decision to place him in a puddle and loudly pronounce your unsatisfactory parenting or (2) he will be thrilled and, before you can get him out, he will have played patty-cake with the puddle, splashing everything within a 10-foot radius.
But again, I digress. Truth be told, for the most part, folks do fall on the courteous side. I guess I shouldn’t let these two guys sour my view on the world. I mean, if you think about it, there are usually way more carts in the proper place than out roaming free in the parking lot. Why focus on the few who don’t play by the rules? I should acknowledge the people who do the right thing. And I should do it for the children.