The Shopping Cart Theory

Day 64

As mentioned on an earlier post, Sundays are regularly the days I tend to like the least in part because it is the end of the weekend, but also because lately (last few years actually) they have become very straightforward for me: wake up, feed the cats, grab breakfast/brunch, hit the town, maybe hangout with friends, go to the supermarket, and eventually watch some good tv at night.  That's a typical Sunday for me and the reason why I mention this, is simply because the "supermarket" part is the one I am having the biggest problem with.

It all comes down to the relationship between "supermarket" and "the end of the weekend" and to put matters worse, going to the supermarket has been turning into a kind of annoying task but not for the reasons you may think.  You see, what annoys me are the people and not the task itself, and bear with me for a second to go a bit deeper.

One thing that drives me nuts is when I'm looking for a parking spot, I may think I've found one when all of the sudden a stupid shopping cart is taking up the spot and that infuriates me. Why is it so hard for people to simply put back to the pile of carts so others can use it or put it on the designated spots around the parking lot? 

I honestly don't understand why people are so freaking lazy.  Yes, I can understand that one or two may have an emergency or urgency where they have to leave ASAP but as time went on, and the issue got worse, I stopped giving the benefit of the doubt to the people who do it.

You may be asking yourself right now, "Omar, why does that bother you? Don't they pay people to pick them up from the parking lot?" and while that might be true, is also true that also shows the level of (or lack of) empathy that some may have with service workers and other members of society because at the end of the day, they are the ones who benefit of the carts being on their place (and that at some point, will be you).

So as a good citizen, returning the carts to their rightful place gives the following benefits:

1. A new user has one available.
2. A parking spot will be available for a car.
3. Everything will look more organized.
4. Workers will have it a bit easier and could be more efficient on other areas.

And call me crazy, but anyone who doesn't put the cart back to their place will get a sort of bad perception from me.  At some point, it bothered me so much, that I thought that someone would have probably written something about this because I cannot be the only one who gets mad with it, and thankfully I was right, and the internet is flooded with articles (opinions or scientific) about the so called "Shopping cart theory" and I suggest you go around and read a little bit about it, you might be surprised by some of the opinions and findings on the topic.

For me, people who don't return the carts (when they most probably can) are, IMHO, just jerks and are very close to the level of distrust I would have to someone who says they don't like pets.