I’ve seen posts about it on social media; avoided conversations about it at happy hour; and kept to myself what I feel is the acceptable protocol for it.
I’m sure by now you’ve realised that I am talking about the debate raging around returning a shopping cart to its rightful place, once all groceries are loaded into your car.
I’d actually managed to push the subject from my mind after participating in a particularly heated argument with a dear friend (who firmly came down on the side of one returns it, come hell or high water), when I came across an online article that actually brought psychologists into the mix.
Do people have just too much time on their hands, or have the rest of us been ignoring the most significant shift in human behaviour since ‘American Idol’ became a thing?
So, of course, I had to read it and see what the fuss was all about.
Quoting here, from the ‘EatingWell’ piece: “The debate may seem trivial, but it taps into something deeper. It raises questions about character, responsibility and what we owe one another when no one is watching. … The shopping cart represents larger fears we have about accountability and moral decay. Will others do the right thing when they know no one is holding them accountable?’ says Sanam Hafeez, Psy.D.”
Crikey.
It goes on to raise the point that there is no reward for returning – nor any punishment for leaving – carts to litter lots like so many wheeled pigeons. So, unless you feel it’s your civic duty to take it back, or you like the little feeling of satisfaction you feel over a job well done, it’s basically Thunderdome.
Now, much like other hot potato topics, where each side is absolutely convinced that they are in the right, the Return Rangers might not give the Leave-It Lazies the benefit of the doubt, when there could be a very good reason why a trolley has been left behind.
The experts weighed in immediately, saying that visible (and invisible) disabilities are a worthy excuse. Terrible weather, or a parent not wanting to leave their child in the car are also – they feel – good enough reasons for such shoppers to not be strung up by their Buster Browns.
Without wanting to end friendships I’ve worked a lifetime on nurturing, may I just nervously add that if a parking lot is not well paved or if the store does not provide ample return lanes in different areas, I would also understand spontaneous cart abandonment.
Don’t throw that mango at me! We’re all entitled to our own opinions. Oh yeah? Well, I didn’t want to come round to your stinky ol’ house at Christmas anyway!
Right, let’s put a pin in the trolley conversation for a moment, before things get ugly, and turn our eyes towards the bags of grapes in the produce sections of supermarkets. If I’d thought about it, I should have asked the likes of Woody Foster (Foster’s) how he felt about all of this. I mean, this is his specialty subject.
Anyway, I shall dip a toe in, sans his expertise.
I confess to being absolutely shocked when I saw a random person shove their paw into a big bag of table grapes – which sat on the shelves between the apples and the freshly squeezed juices – and proceeded to remove, and subsequently chomp upon, a green ovoid delight. They clearly considered its texture and flavour, and then moved on to mushrooms.
Whaaatttt? What was happening here?
Just as I started to get my breath back, another shopper approached the grapes; reached into a bag; took a few vines-worth – not the whole thing – put those into a produce bag, and moved on with their lives.
Gasp! How was this possible? Weren’t we supposed to buy the whole bag as presented? Since when did we have a choice of how much we purchased?
As soon as I got home, I was on the blower to my friends to ask their opinions. It’s amazing, isn’t it? You think you know people, and then they state that there is nothing wrong at all with choosing a handful over a bushel.
“I just don’t need that many, and they aren’t cheap.”
My world turned upside down.
I will say that fewer friends agreed with removing a grape and eating it without buying anything, but then one who was in favour of this said that they would always want to taste test first, as suppose they bought the whole bag and ended up with – literally – sour grapes?
Hmmm …
On the one hand, I simply could not imagine sampling something that wasn’t on a table with a smiling purveyor handing it to me in the kind of small paper cup reserved for water dispensers in doctors’ offices. On the other, who among us has not brought home a bag of produce for which we have paid goodly money, only to sup upon the first piece and be horribly disappointed? Lips involuntarily sucking back towards the uvula, face locked in a rictus of revolt, as the pangs of regret hit us in waves.
And … end scene.
I had to agree that it would be nice to sample before spending, but I just know that my brain could not compute taking a grape without express permission.
Woody? What say you?
Even though I know that the carts and grapes scenarios will have advocates and naysayers on either side of the aisle, I will mention something I witnessed one day that no one in their right mind could support. A tourist gentleman was making his way around rows of pick-’n’-mix items, such as gummy bears, nuts, chocolates … you know the deal, and was actually opening the lids to stick his fingers in and grab a handful, putting them in his mouth, followed by moving to the next container and pushing those same digits into the new mix. I was walking casually by, looking for brute-strength deodorant when I saw this unfolding before my very eyes.
Hell, no!
Beep! Beep! Beep! Back it up, Wheaton!
At first I just stared at him, but he wasn’t catching my vibe. Finally he looked in my direction, and I – in my typically loud voice – said, “Do you think that’s something you should be doing? Have you lost your mind?”
He in the baseball cap and large T-shirt with a picture of palm trees on it looked at me, realised I wasn’t just going to chastise and run, and gently closed the final lid, slinking away down an aisle.
I mean, I may not always return my shopping cart (see how I slipped it in there?) but hand-mixin’ the pick-’n’-mix is a grape too far.
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