Why don't people return their shopping carts?

Wasn't there a Tom Hanks movie about a new arrival at US airport was denied entry. For money he scurried around returning carts for the quarters, bought a burger.
 
I clearly remember the month following September 11, 2001, because strangers talked to each other and became a lot nicer. I say "month", because that's about as long as it lasted. It was a pretty good month for solidarity and feeling like we were all in this together. I wish we could all do that, all the time. I talk to strangers all the time, especially the workers who are often "invisible" to other people (housekeeping staff, janitors, cashiers, etc.) They often seem surprised that I want to talk to them, and always seem happy that I do. Making people smile is easy. After some of the violence and God-awfulness that I've seen in my life, handing out smiles seems like something that costs me nothing, but helps everything.
 
Not sure if true ... allegedly ... Sam Walton went to a meeting in NYC and went in the elevator. The lady working in the elevator was miserable.

The next time he went up the woman was very nice to him - smiled and said hello. A worker in the building commented that he never saw the miserable lady ever smile or say hello ever. Walton responded - I noticed she was unhappy. So I asked her her name and brought her a cup of coffee. She is miserable because people don’t treat her right. It isn’t her that is miserable.
 
Great read. I am a returner, and a scooper of lonely carts to take into the store. I have shopped the same Safeway for 23 years, there is a bagger there named Rosalie. To this day, she asks about our kids. She knows their names. They are 23 and 17 and she has never once failed to ask about them. She always says hi, regardless of weather or monsoon and is scrambling in lightening to get the carts in. If I ever win the lottery I am giving her a chunk. So many people do not make eye contact or read employee name tags. Treat them as invisible. I am grateful for the returners and scoopers and do gooders (that's not really a word).
 
Capt MJ said:
I also chat with the cart returner folks out in the lot. That can’t be the highest-paying job in a career ladder, but they are working. Their faces always light up when they see me bringing a couple of carts back, if I’m bringing mine and snag a few strays on the way. We can always talk about weather or the next Ravens game.
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Speaking of the next Ravens game...WHOS EXCITED [emoji137]‍♀️!!
 
Our preferred grocer has two sizes of carts. What does it mean if one not only returns their cart, but has been know to sort the carts in the corral into like-sized stacks? Hmmm...
 
FMHS-79 said:
Our preferred grocer has two sizes of carts. What does it mean if one not only returns their cart, but has been know to sort the carts in the corral into like-sized stacks? Hmmm...
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You are classed as All That And A Bag Of (🥓🥓) Chips Returner.
 
I have a new appreciation for shopping carts. I recently met a shopping cart saleswoman. Who even knew that was a career option? She was thrilled when I asked about carts. The cheapest cart she sells is $800. I have bought running cars for less! Although I have always been a returner and stacker, I do so more carefully now with my increased respect for shopping carts.
 
As a parent of 3, and remembering what it was like when they were little, I always help a mom or dad in the lot to bring their cart to the corral. Same for the elderly.

It drives me NUTS when I see a cart sitting in the lot only 10 feet from a corral. I've actually taken pictures and posted on FB to vent...
 
Don’t get started with my real pet peeve ... non-handicapped people parking in handicapped spots.
 
I’m a returner - it drives me batty to see the wind blowing a cart across the lot before it not so gently settles into the side of someone’s car or stops in the middle of the empty space - all because some bubblebutt was too lazy to push the cart 50 feet to the collection point ( and despite the study, most of the people I have observed leaving the cart rolling are not moms loaded down with kiddos or a handicapped person for whom pushing it back is a challenge- it is some slob who just tosses the groceries in and hops in and pulls out). It is basically just self centered laziness- it’s always somebody else’s job to bring them back. Really irritating to me. So I’m the guy who you see in the parking lot who pulls in and collects several and pushes them into the collection point just to clear things up a little for the poor guy who does have to do it for a job. Then again, I travel about 3 weeks out of a month - and I always pick up my hotel room and make my hotelbed every morning before I head out to my appointments because I don’t want the people cleaning the room to see disorder and think I’m some kind of a slob- so perhaps I’m just a little obsessive ( which is what my daughter claims).😱
 
bruno said:
Then again, I travel about 3 weeks out of a month - and I always pick up my hotel room and make my hotelbed every morning before I head out to my appointments because I don’t want the people cleaning the room to see disorder and think I’m some kind of a slob- so perhaps I’m just a little obsessive ( which is what my daughter claims).😱
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Oh no! You had to go there.

I traveled a good deal for many years and usually tend to live directly out of my suitcase. I don't scatter my stuff because I would then have to pull it all together when its time to leave. Of course I put hanging stuff on hangers and bathroom stuff in the bathroom but the rest of my stuff is kept pretty much in one place. This is not the case for my kids, both the boys and the girls. In both cases, we can go to a hotel and split up to drop our stuff in the rooms and when I go to meet up with them, if I get a glance in their room, it looks like a suitcase bomb went off. Seriously, in just a moment or two, they will have completely covered the floor, etc and it stays that way until we leave.
 
For some reason I was thinking of this thread and felt called to bring it back to light for those newer members who may have missed it. It certainly never gained the traction of our beloved bacon thread or even the SHAME SHAME thread, but it still had merit.
 
At our local Walmart, carts are returned to the corrals in great volume. But due to staffing shortages (I presume), the corrals are not emptied frequently enough with the end result being that the driving lanes frequently end up partially blocked by the overflowing carts. I have found myself on more than one occasion repositioning carts to compress the space they're taking up to clear the way for cars to drive.
 
On tiktok there is a guy that calls himself the cart narc. Puts magnets on the cars of people who don’t return them. Always ends in a verbal confrontation and sometimes physical - so far he is fast enough to get away before someone clocks him.
 
A1Janitor said:
On tiktok there is a guy that calls himself the cart narc. Puts magnets on the cars of people who don’t return them. Always ends in a verbal confrontation and sometimes physical - so far he is fast enough to get away before someone clocks him.
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What kind of magnet?
 
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