Are the people responsible enough to push the cart back to the nearest cart-corral, or do they just leave the shopping cart next to where they were parked poised to roll into the car next to them the first time the wind blows? Or do they make the half-hearted attempt to keep the cart from rolling away by putting its front wheels up over a curb or in some landscaping… yet still having to avoid the dreaded walk to the cart-corral?
Rarely is there an excuse for these lazy slobs that I would ever accept (or even consider). Folks… you just got done pushing that shopping cart all over the store, with an ever-increasing load and then pushed it all the way out to where you parked. Do you mean to tell me that you were so spent after transferring your groceries to your trunk that you couldn’t push the now empty (and therefore lighter) cart back to the cart-corral?
From my bigoted standpoint I must conclude that in my area, CostCo patrons are the greatest people alive today. There are fewer return areas for carts and the distances to these cart-corrals are sometimes extreme. A person might have to walk a couple of lanes over and down to the end of the row… but these brave souls make the journey! Bravo to you, CostCo shoppers; you’re all heroes in my book!
The mid-range customers shop at stores like Albertson’s or Fred Meyer (a Kroger concern in the northwest). If there’s a cart-corral somewhat close, they’ll usually make the effort. But sometimes they’re in just too much of a hurry and so the cart will be left where their car used to be. The cart-return behavior of these people earns them the moniker of “Almond Joy Shoppers”: Sometimes you feel like a nut; sometimes you don’t. (Substitute the phrase “returning your cart” for the word “nut” if you’re too young to remember that old advertising jingle.)
And then there’s Wal-Mart. Oh, scum of the Earth! Wal-Mart shopper is thy name! Every time I drive through our local Wal-Mart parking lot it is littered with shopping carts everywhere. In the middle of the road where they’ve rolled, next to (or up against) a parked car in the space next to where they were unloaded, and the one that really gets me worked up into a lather… the people who park right next to the cart-corral leave the cart right there on the outside of the corral where they loaded up their car. They can’t take three steps backwards and then push the cart into the corral with the other few carts that a few lost, responsible souls actually managed to put away. There’s a reason that you Wal-Mart shoppers have a website dedicated to you!
So please, dear reader, the next time you go out shopping – take a look around and see where the shopping carts are at your local store. Shopping cart profiling can be fun, doesn’t cost you anything and gives you something to look forward to when you visit different shopping centers in your area.
Oh, yes… one last thing: put the damned cart away when you’re done shopping so I don’t wind up writing about you!
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It's time for a little "truth in advertising" here. The above photo was staged. Absolute fakery involved... nothing real about it. I had to pull the cart OUT of the corral and place it where you see it. Why? Because my shopping cart profiling WORKS! This Walmart is located in The Villages, Florida – a golfing retirement community boasting a population of 100,000 according to a recent Bloomberg article. The point I’m making is that THESE people are active, responsible and basically give a crap about their surroundings. (I stopped at a Walmart in Gainesville yesterday where the opposite was true; I SHOULD have take a picture there. No alteration would have been necessary!) The Villages’ Walmart accurately depicts the caliber of its shoppers!
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They Only Come Out At Night?
In the first installment of this article, I sang the praises of The Villages’ Walmart shoppers, and how nicely they put their shopping carts back after loading up their cars. When I observed this pristine quality, it was in the morning hours.
I forgot two important factors: this Walmart is not exclusive to the residents of The Villages. The outlying community also shops here. And perhaps the most important rule to remember is that the “real Walmart shoppers” only come out at night!
I had to make a quick trip to the Walmart to pick up an incidental item for my wife: a seam ripper. There was a Walgreen’s much closer to our vacation rental, but they sell the seam ripper in a combo pack with a measuring tape and added almost three dollars to the price. No thanks. I’ll take my chances and go walk around those who only go to Walmart at night.
There’s a certain corner of the parking lot I usually pull into, away from most of the turmoil of people trying to find something close to the front door. True to form there weren’t many cars out there, but what should greet my unsuspecting eyes? A plethora of shopping carts left anywhere but in the corrals. I counted eight carts in total just in this small, uninhabited corner of the parking lot. (Who knows what kind of cart carnage could be found in the rest of the lot?)
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| Really? I can see the cart-corral from here! It's NOT that far! It took more energy to tip the cart over than to put it away! |
Three were placed with the front wheels tipped up into the curbing of the landscaped edges of the parking lot. Three were just left in spaces next to where their users loaded their cars, one was conscientiously pushed up against the cart corral (exactly like in the “staged” photo above) and the final cart was just lying there on its side, partially out in the lane.
I snapped the photo of that cart, and then righted it and pushed it back to a nearby cart corral, only about three parking spaces away from the cart’s “resting” spot. Then I walked toward the entrance of Walmart, knowing that I would be walking amongst a different caliber of clientele: the Walmart shoppers that only come out at night!
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Do you have any “award-winning” stores that you frequent where the parking lot looks more like a war-zone than a loading zone? Share the juicy details with us by leaving a comment!
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