Cart conversion

It was a shameful confession. She wouldn’t even make eye contact with me. A friend of mine, head bowed, said that she was “that person.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant. Vampire? Cannibal? Auburn fan? No, far more shameful. She admitted that, on occasion, she was one of those people who leaves the grocery cart sitting in the middle of the shopping center parking lot.
She decided to plead her case. Sometimes you’re juggling kids and the weather looks rough and it’s just a harried day and you have to just get in the car and get rolling, leaving collateral cart damage behind.
Donning my powdered wig (what, you don’t have one?) I ruled swiftly: GUILTY!
She again tried the argument, which had been previously struck down in the Court of Mike: The argument that returning the cart would be next to impossible, as the children were acting like jackrabbits on speed. It seems valid at first. One child is busy trying to take off a diaper while the other one is trying to eat through your recently purchased loaf of bread.
The weather is clouding up, and the heavens are going to open up any second now. You’ve got a small window to tether your children and throw the groceries in the back. No time for marching all the way over to the cart corral, right?
However, the reason this argument does not allow for cart abandonment is that you should have strategically parked from the get-go. Immediately upon entering the car lot, pull right up beside a cart corral. That way, when you leave, your cart is already home.
You can even give it a cool little hip bump to send it the final few feet, just to show what kind of happenin’ person you are.
And I know the counter arguments to this:
1. “What if it’s raining? Don’t you want to park as close as possible?” Answer: If you are a parent, you are most likely covered in drool, Cheez-It crumbs or the remnants of the melted Nerds you just sat in, so a hardy downpour might do you some good.
2. “What if it’s hot? That’s a long walk.” Answer: Let’s be honest – if we were to find the largest parking lot at a grocery store and park at the very end, it would never be considered a long walk. Consider it your daily cardio.
3. “But what if I am pregnant and want to park in that parking space with the little stork sign that reads, ‘Expectant Mothers only’?” Answer: I have never had that problem.
4. “I am special. Little people will gather the carts for me.” Answer: No you’re not. Put your cart back.
I know that I harp on this one issue a lot, but I have to be honest with you: This affects each and every one of us far more than something like social security or a natural disaster in a country we are not entirely sure how to pronounce.
But, Mike, you say, how is that? To which I answer: Stress. It is estimated by me just now that 95 percent of all deaths in the U.S. are stress related. And think about the number of times you go to pull into that prime parking space, only to have to slam on the breaks when you see the lone cart (or, even worse, several of them, huddling together in a “Lord of the Flies” grocery cart commune).
And think about what you mutter under your breath. (Nice language, by the way.) I don’t want you to become a statistic. Imagine a world in which every prime parking spot is just that – a wide open swath of asphalt, just waiting for your SUV to ease into. What’s that? Bluebirds chirping? Sounds like serenity to me ...
Alas, I will conclude with some good news. Shortly after my friend’s confession, I received an e-mail from her. It read “At least for today, I am not ‘that person.’ I strategically parked and returned my cart to the corral!!!”
One convert. A billion to go.