Shopping Cart Awareness!

The other night, Matt and I were sitting in the parking lot at the local big box grocery store. We were going to stock up on some essentials, but before we got out of the car we got a phone call and so we were just sitting in the car until the conversation was over. Matt was talking first, and then I took over the conversation. It was a very windy night because a storm was supposed to be coming in.

The parking lot wasn't extremely busy, but there were still quite a few cars there. All of a sudden I notice a run away shopping cart headed straight for a row of cars! I tapped Matt and pointed at the cart, before I could finish saying, "That cart is going to hit a car" he was out of the car chasing the cart! He ran fast, but the cart had a head start on him, it had started rolling from a few rows away and Matt couldn't catch it in time. It hit a car and left a HUGE dent above one of the car's wheels! We both felt awful, and it wasn't even our shopping cart!!

So, here comes my rant. Hopefully it will make you think twice before just leaving your shopping cart in the middle of the parking lot. I understand it can be inconvienient to run the cart over to the cart drop off spaces that are usually all over the parking lot. I imagine with kids it is even more difficult, but honestly, you don't know what will happen with that cart if you leave it in the parking lot! I hate it when you're looking for a parking space in a busy parking lot and the only one you can find has a shopping cart sitting in the middle of it!

We were at another grocery store a few days later and we happened to walk out a little bit after the person in the parking stall across from us. We were walking up to our car and watched her put her shopping cart up "out of the way" of any one parking space (you know, you can put it in the corners of the parking spaces and people can usually still get in the space) but it was right next to our car! She let go, and then had to steady it because it started leaning toward our car. She stabalized it and it didn't hit our car, so no big deal right? Well, who knows what could have happened to that cart after she drove away! The one we saw hit a car didn't have an owner, the person who had placed it in the middle of the lot was long gone.

Sorry for this long rant, but the moral of the story is that it's probably more respectful of everyone out there if we just take a few seconds (10 maybe) to put away our shopping carts in the drop off spaces. Save somebody from getting a brand new dent in their car.