Apparently You Can Read Someone’s Soul Based On What They Do With a Shopping Cart
Sometimes, I hang out in a Facebook group where women of all ages converse about anything and offer advice to one another. Bitchy mother-in-law? Let’s talk about it! Don’t know what jeans are in style? Here are a few suggestions. Need an appetizer idea for a party? Those ladies have you covered.
It is a very inclusive group of women supporting women. Except last week I noticed something that seemed to universally piss them all off: when someone didn’t return their shopping cart to the proper receptacle.
And now, I’m going to write more about shopping carts than you’ve probably thought about in the last 25 years and venture into the hot-button topic of not returning them, which apparently makes some people's heads almost spin around and pop off their shoulders.
But first, let me confess three things: 1) I have, on occasion, not returned my shopping cart, like when it was raining hard, and I needed to be somewhere, and I wanted my hair to look halfway decent. I know…horrible, shameful, vain, lazy, blah blah blah; 2) When it comes to shopping carts, my personal hell and walk of shame is always skipping the cart when I walk into the store and then going back for a shopping cart after realizing I can’t carry 23 items in my arms; and 3) Before people dislike me, gossip about me and/or shun me more than they already do, my cart return rate is a solid 98 percent.
Anyway, back to the returning part. The extent of the not-returning-your-shopping- cart rage surprised me. I have only recently become aware that a significant number of people judge the normal character of others based on how they handle their shopping carts.
Apparently, this started with a theory floating around social media that judges a person’s ethics and promises you can read somebody’s soul depending on what they do with their shopping cart after emptying it of groceries.
It goes like this: If you return your cart to the designated receptacle, you are a good, kind, empathic person. If you do not return your cart, you are a bad, mean, selfish, lazy f*ck who doesn’t deserve any happiness in life, and you are the worst kind of horrid human that ever walked the earth.
Yep, it really is that black and white, according to The Cart Narcs, a group of video vigilantes who confront and publicly shame shoppers who leave without returning their carts. Hi, perfect stranger. I wanted to let you know that I have just judged you as despicable and deserving of nothing but bad karma because you did not return your shopping cart to the designated area after unloading your groceries and by the way, we’re filming this confrontation and will be sharing it on YouTube, where millions of other people can see what a disgusting human being you are.
That really seems like an overreaction, but who knows what might have happened to set these people off because who gets that assholey over a shopping cart?
Color me shocked, but I didn’t realize so many people didn’t return carts that we needed a YouTube group to police the issue. And now I can’t stop thinking about that theory and how a whole lot of people get very emotional over shopping carts. Some angrily use them as battering rams in the store, and some rage when they’re not returned to the proper receptible.
Listen, we should be returning our shopping carts for various reasons. It’s kind; it keeps a random cart from catching wind and rocketing toward a parked car and gets you a few extra steps, which is good for your health, and you better believe I’m counting that as a workout.
But here’s the thing: I will not judge or become unhinged if I notice you didn’t return your cart. Honestly, I don’t care about the cart. If I’m able to, I’ll do a good deed and return it for you (but that MAY not always happen if it’s raining, super humid, and my hair is threatened.)
I may get snubbed and cut out of a few holiday parties for saying this, but I don’t think not returning your shopping cart is that big of a deal.
Why? Because I care about the shopper - the mother who has to haul a baby with her or chooses to buckle it alone in the car while she shoves her cart back to the store entrance, the elderly shopper who’s tired or who moves so slowly they are vulnerable in a parking lot, or women who shop alone after dark. They are all good people who are unselfishly looking out for their safety.
So, should we worry so much about the cart in the bigger scheme of things? I say no, and I’d like to offer a new rule for shopping cart vigilantes: You don’t get to make the rules.
Perhaps we could mind our own business in the grocery store parking lot (unless someone is getting mugged or in distress) and be collectively mad and channel our energy into doing something about the stuff that matters. Things like poverty, homelessness, violence.