Shopping Carts: The Scourge of the Parking Lot

Why can't people use the cart corral? Is it too much work to walk the extra ten feet to dispose of the shopping cart properly? Sure, you're in hurry to get on with your day, run those other errands, or cook dinner, but so is everyone else. What goes through a person's head when they leave the cart in the middle of a parking stall? Is it, "I'll just leave this here. No one is going to park their car here anyway."? Is it, "Who cares if this cart hits another car? I won't be here when it happens."? Or is it, "Someone else will move it so I'll just leave it."? Whatever the answer, it's wrong.

Shopping carts are a nuisance when they aren't placed in the proper area. The favored area of cart crime committers seems to be the planter in the middle of lot. You know, the compact one with the tree and maybe some shrubs or wood chips in it. There. That spot where there is barely enough space to park your car as it is, but they, either because of laziness or sheer apathy have to push that cart up there. So now, you try to squeeze your hopefully, compact car into that spot as carefully as possible so as not the hit cart and ram it even fur up on that parking block. Now you've left no room for the cart wrangler to do his job and clear. Or if you happen to be an SUV driver who feels you can still squeeze that behemoth of a vehicle into that spot, you probably smashed into it making it the most hated cart in the store. It will never steer straight again.

Unnecessary cart use adds to the displeasure of shopping cart casualties. Why is it that the people who only have four or five small items in one or two bags like to steer those carts out of the store? What do they need it for, to hold them up as you walk to their car? These people are notorious for leaving shopping carts sitting willy-nilly in the lot. "I'll just take the bag out, and leave this cart here, for some poor sucker to run into as he tries to squeeze around this F-350 dual cab to park his car." Please, just leave the cart in the store. It's doing much less damage there than in that lot.