Friday, December 23, 2011

Return of the Shopping Cart!

     Just when I thought it was safe to forget
them......they pull me back in! The shopping
carts!
     I've complained about how people use
the carts, then let them sit wherever they
happen to be. In the driving lanes. Right
next to my car door. Occasionally in the
cart return lane, half in and half out.
     The carts and some of the people who
push them apparently see me coming!
     And the latest confrontations were
INSIDE the store!
     Yesterday my wife and I did some
shopping to get ready for the family
Christmas Eve gathering.
     The store was crowded with a lot of
other folks gathering their last minute
goodies. It was also crowded with it's
own displays. That, coupled with the
fact it's carts seem to be a bit larger than
the ones we usually see, made pushing
it around a real challenge.
    We only rammed one display (that I
can remember) and nothing actually
fell. It might be a good place to walk
student drivers around!
     Then came the check out.
     The lines, as you might expect,
were long!
     We saw an opening and moved over
to one with just one customer. And her
items had all been totaled.
      Her cart, filled to the brim, sat just
beyond the register. You know. The
spot where you would logically move
your cart to fill it as items were
scanned. But the woman disappeared!
     I don't know where she went.
    But there her cart sat, until the
check out girl took it upon herself
to push it out of our way. Of course
that took a minute or two.
     One foot away from us put the
cart into the way of somebody else.
     The carts!!! They're everywhere!
They're everywhere!   
     I don't know it the woman ever
came back to retrieve her purchases
......or her cart.
    We managed to negotiate ours
out the door, got it unloaded, and
parked in one of those return lanes.
     By now hers is probably unloaded
and sitting somewhere in the
parking lot driving lanes waiting for
me to return!
     I'm begining to hear the theme
from "Jaws" in my head whenever
we pull up to one of these stores!
     Hope you can get along with one
of those hand held baskets...and that
all your NEWS is good.

1 comment:

  1. One place where the carts seem to be under control is in our Aldis Market in Stroudsburg. The carts are tethered together with a chain/lock combination that releases a cart when you put a quarter in it. Returning the cart and clicking the lock together releases the quarter that the last person taking a cart had put in to get their cart. Ingenious how that simple idea works. Why more markets don't use the system behooves me.

    ReplyDelete