I am sure everyone out there has one pet peeve or another. According to the online Dictionary, a pet peeve is “something that a particular person finds especially annoying.” My pet peeve is people leaving their shopping carts all over the parking lot.
I am not sure why, but when I see a shopping cart in the middle of a parking lot, up on a curb, or anywhere other than in the return cart area, I get so mad. It seriously drives me bonkers. I don’t understand why we as Americans are so lazy that we cannot take a cart back to the store that we literally just walked out of. Is it going to cost you that much time? Can you not walk 20 feet to return the cart to a safe place? Seriously, you just walked out of the store. You can’t walk back in?
Whenever we park and I see a cart in a random place, I take it in with me or to the return cart area. Personally, I don’t want a gust of wind to take that cart and run it into my car or someone else’s. Do people not think of these things? Do they not care about their automobiles or those of others? I don’t have many pet peeves but this one drives me nuts.
Our neighbor came home from Home Depot recently and told us a shopping cart had hit his truck. He happens to be a dent repair specialist so he will be able to repair his automobile. But what about others who are not as lucky? I blame the individual who left the cart first and foremost, but I also blame Home Depot. They do not have a lot of safe places for people to return their carts to especially further away from the store. I mean why not put rails up to keep customers’ cars and trucks safe?
I do need to give kudos to Kroger. They have return carts areas about every five parking spaces. I understand this does cut down on parking spots, but I was relieved that my blood pressure didn’t skyrocket because of carts in random places because they were all safely in the return cart area!
It helps a little when the person at least secures the cart on a curb, but it drives me crazy when it’s four parking spots away from the return cart area!!! For example, these two carts are on the curb and the cart return is right on the other side of that truck. FIVE spaces away.
Anyway, whatever your pet peeve is I hope you find a way to get through it. I know it’s hard because my blood does boil when I see this. I try to give the person the benefit of the doubt. Maybe the person was injured or had an emergency and didn’t have 48 seconds to return their cart. I try to put good karma out there by taking as many random carts as I can back to the proper area. I hope this will inspire other people to do the same and maybe we can curb this random cart pet peeve of mine!
1 Comment
I agree about the shopping cart problem!! I give people the evil eye when they don’t return the carts to the cart return corral!