What the Heck Was That Old Shopping Cart Argument Over?

Yeah, between that, and shoppers aimlessly drifting in the aisles tasting samples and being transfixed by the animatronic milk cartons, Stew's can be an annoying place to shop.

katlady, Stew Leonard's is a specialty grocery/dairy store with locations in western CT and eastern NY. They have a small petting zoo, a large garden center, and inside the store are singing milk cartons and bananas (“I'm a Chiquita banana”…sung by a banana with a turban made of fruit on its head) and that kind of thing. Think low-rent Disney.  A cow head in the dairy department moos when you pull a rope. Used to terrify DS when he was small. 😀

  Right? That description made me want to go shopping there right now. Cheap entertainment while shopping is apparently right up my alley.

  I am one of those people with hidden disabilities, until recently breaking my ankle. I’ve been cleared to start driving again and took my first solo trip to the grocery store. I’m walking with cane but part of grocery shopping to me is returning the cart. It would take a lot for me to not do it and walking before I broke my ankle wasn’t always the easiest for me

I’m way too much of a rule follower to NOT bring it back to either the corral or to the front of the store. Rain, snow, sleet, hail, I’m bringing that sucker back so it won’t roll off into someone else’s car or be in someone’s way. I detest it when a cart is left parked in between the cars because half of the time you can’t pull into the open spot because the stupid cart has rolled in the way.

On a related note, back when I was younger and childless, I always thought the best spots were the ones closest to the door of the store. After I had my kid, I discovered I had been doing it wrong my whole life. The *best* spots are the ones directly next to the cart corral, regardless of how close that might be to the door especially if you have a little kid with you. It’s so much easier to get the kid/car seat into the store if you can plop said child into a cart pulled straight from the adjacent cart corral. You breeze in, do your shopping, breeze out, load your stuff in the car, load your kid, and it’s easy and effortless to park that cart right back in the rack next to your car. You don’t have to leave your kid, you don’t have to leave your car, the cart gets back in the rack where it belongs. Win-win-win!

My kid is way too big to ride in a cart these days, but I still think the spot next to the rack is the best place to park. An added bonus is that with the rack spot next to you on one side, there will only be one car parked on the other side, so the risk of having your door dinged by someone careless parked next to you is halved.

Now, if I can just get people to understand that if you push the carts into each other, the corral will in fact hold more than three carts.

The only time I haven't returned a cart was when Alison was a baby, and I shopped at a store without convenient drop-off spots. There were two news stories when I was pregnant with her: in one, a baby stolen was from a cart when a mom was unloading it; in the 2nd, a mom put a baby in a car while she unloaded and the car was stolen. As a result, I was a little paranoid and never let my hand off her when we were loading/unloading. And frankly, sometimes I was just DONE after a shopping trip - I wouldn't know until she was 2 that my constant post-pregnancy heartburn was gallbladder attacks.

I always return them now, but seeing the PetSmart ad at the bottom of my screen makes me wonder why somewhere that lets you bring your pets where you are likely to purchase big items doesn't have cart corrals. I always walk back up to the store at ours.

I always. I have watched carts slam into parked cars when it's windy out.

Now that I work at a grocery store... holy crap people can be lazy. I'm a supervisor and sometimes I'm rounding up abandoned carts IN THE STORE. WTF people? Our carts will lock their wheels if you try to take it off the property. The one day one of the floor people came over and she asked for the wheel unlocker device. Someone made it as far as the bus shelter with one. It was a hot day and she was not a happy camper that she had to go to the far side of the parking lot to get one cart.

It isn't an issue for me because with the wheelchair I use the smaller, hand held baskets that you return when you check out.

That said - if I were able-bodied & used a cart, I would return it in most cases. I freely admit I wouldn't take a cart back if it meant leaving my children unattended in a vehicle, even for 30 seconds. I am one of those 'never allow chilcdren to be out of your line of sight in a parking lot,' types. That takes precedence over courtesy.

Right?  This brings me great joy.  I could spend all day doing it at Sams.

I know, right?  I derive an entirely unnatural level of satisfaction from getting a whole stack of carts to nest neatly together into each other! 

Ah... I didn't realize that. I generally park in the parking designated for persons w/ disabilities.