Shopping Carts Shopping Carts Shopping cart usage varies from place to place. I mean those chrome steel or plastic carts you see in Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, or Costco. I am sure it applies to grocery stores although I am not so sure those little drug store carts qualify. I use criteria to determine if I like a place based upon shopping cart usage.
Here is how I see it. Let’s start with Costco and go from there. Let’s start with the parking lot.
Many years ago when Bree and Megan were small, I worried about their safety in shopping center parking lots. I learned to appreciate the shoppers who left their carts neatly between rows of parked cars near the front of a space. This means that I can get out of my car, pick up a cart and either place my kids in it immediately or when they got bigger, have them grab the cart with me. We lived in Texas for a while. Texans think of parking lots in the same manner that Hales Corners racers think of a dirt track: no holds barred. Faster is better for intimidating the pedestrians. They enjoy buzzing people. Ergo, the cart. They know that buzzing a person will not harm their car. They keep some distance from the cart although they may show their frustration by their brain simulator (horn).
After Texas and south Florida, I always get a nearby cart
even though my kids have grown up long ago. The store appreciates
it, the cars keep their distance, and
I can enjoy a leisurely walk to and from my car in peace. By the
way – I park in the first
convenient space after entering the lot.
This is a long ways from the store entrance. With my schedule,
this may be the best exercise I get all
day. I hate people who waste their time and my time by clogging
the
aisles. They wait to see if some backup lights will go on
somewhere close to
the
door -- that is at the start or end of the aisle. There ought to
be a law
against that gas waste now that we are talking about serious gas price
increases again.
Once in Florida at a Sizzler restaurant, my kids and I were almost
run over by a woman in a Mercedes. She came so close that she
almost wore out the sharper edge of my car key as it scraped from the
front of her car to the back. She grinned as she went by.
Obviously she was less than an arm's length from my children. She
would have saved herself a new paint job if Sizzler had shopping
carts. No, I am not suggesting shopping carts for Sizzler -- I am
only showing how dangerous it is to walking across a parking lot
without a shopping cart.
Costco, at least, is designed with long rows of merchandise. There is an aisle along each store wall as well as two more such that the store is comprised of more or less equally spaced rows containing three sections each. The entrance/exit is at the front at a corner. There is a row of cash registers along the front with their services in front of and towards the entrance from these. Enough geography. The main aisles then are designed to be very wide and this historically was great. I could park my cart at the end of a row, traverse down the row to the right and return in the next row. I place my merchandise in the cart and move up two more rows. This is easy unless there is too much merchandise to buy in that row. In this case, I take the cart up the nice wide row. This is also good. Doing this I rarely have to deal with people loitering in the row. But history has been left behind. Costco now places merchandise at the end of each row. There is barely enough room to park your cart at row end anymore. People who shop like I do now have to compete for space at the row end.
This is not nice but is understandable: Costco, like other merchants, uses every square foot of space it can to sell merchandise. Moreover once you are back into crowding the clientele, the really stupid people return. Oh. One other atrocity: Costco now permits some Vita-Mix or something like that street hawker in a booth with a headset and a large speaker to setup shop at the row end. Not only is he an obnoxious person, his shop takes the entire passable aisle. This is really bad but it gets worse as the clientele gathers around him as he spouts how great making your own juice with his parts and pieces will make you feel. Fire codes should prevent this menace or it should be against some other code or ordinance. This is not mildly obnoxious: it is grossly obnoxious.
This is the meat of the matter. Ideally, people would drive their carts in an orderly manner. For example, stay on the right side of the aisle and pull off to the side when you are not moving. You know – the way you are supposed to drive your car. In general also, the traffic flow is counter-clockwise in the store. People trying to go clockwise are fighting the general traffic. This is OK but I do not enjoy going against the flow.
So now we see how people deal with a little crowding. Some people abandon their carts when they see something they like. This is the ultimate rude behavior. I notice this behavior a lot in Tucson. For this rudeness, I try to move the cart out of the way of traffic. For this courtesy I have been threatened with my life. People in Arizona carry guns and do not vote for that flaming liberal, Barry Goldwater. In most places, moving a cart to safety is not necessary and, if done, does not get you assaulted. Again be careful of Texans.
This has never been a concern of mine even though some Costco’s make a habit of running out of available carts and you have to scavenge the parking lot for a free one (San Jose). My habit of picking up the first available cart in the lot helps avoid this problem.
So, I go shopping with my son-in-law, Marcus. Marcus is a very nice guy. I think a bit paranoid but he comes from a military, law enforcement background and so the paranoia is understandable. When his family goes shopping, they make sure that they have hold of their cart with both hands for fear someone will steal the cart, steal their merchandise or put something they do not want into the cart while they are looking the other way. I am not young and have been shopping in stores across the country. I have rarely had any of these problems. The extra junk I just put out when I see it. I have not checked out and so anything taken from my cart only means that when I go shopping next week, I need to pick it up again. A missing cart has never been a problem.
Now it is a problem. Twice in the last couple of months my cart has been stolen in the Yuma Wal-Mart. I do not leave an empty cart: -- this is an invitation to lazy shopping-cart lifters. But these two times at Yuma Wal-Mart, the cart had at least 10 things in it. Both times, the merchandise was left in a pile around the corner from where the cart was stolen. It happened today when I was less than 10 feet from the cart choosing a coloring book for a grandchild. With all of the Spanish speaking here, you would think that there would be some Spanish coloring books. In any case, I found another available cart nearby and placed my stuff back into it. The cart thief could have taken an available cart, as there were 4 of them just down the same aisle as the cart they stole.
Last month in the same Yuma Wal-Mart, I was looking at some string and came back to find my cart gone. I saw it parked about 10 feet way and empty. My stuff on a shelf next to me. I retrieved my cart much to the dismayed yells of “cart thief” by the woman who had stolen it. When she saw my put my stuff from the shelf back in the cart, she helped me and apologized profusely. I shall never understand this behavior.
Understanding behavior is not one of my strong points. A couple of months ago I picked up a woman hitchhiker and gave her a ride to the next town. She ran the local pool hall and offered to introduce me to other available young women. When I got back home, I was informed that the local pool hall was the town brothel. I did not return to see Nelli afterwards although I have felt guilty about it.
Last week, I met a really pretty young woman needing a ride across town. After she left, the woman whom I was visiting told me that this other girl charged $200 per night. This is a lot of money for a small fishing poblado. It also shows how little I know about meeting people. I thought these women were just normal, attractive, friendly women.
When you go shipping, just be courteous with your cart by
making space for your fellow shoppers – life is too short. My
apologies, Marcus: there are cart
thieves out there.
To the rest of you, there are people in the store other than
yourselves. It seems a minimal inconvenience to you to place your
cart someplace other than in the absolute middle of the traffic areas
while you are stopped and especially when you are away from the cart.