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Cart Narcs ... I mean, I get it, but when did this become a thing?

Unless someone has a legitimate reason (small kids, handicapped, etc.) I believe carts should be returned to a common place. I honestly cannot stand carts being left around in parking lots - they block spaces, hit cars, and more. I have criticized my mother and other people I have been shopping with before for trying to just leave their cart in the middle of the lot and will always take it back to a corral. I find it extremely rude and lazy to not do so if you are physically able to.
 
For those who don't know, Cart Narcs is a 'bit' video series done by a 'popular' radio show call (I think) 'The Woody Show'.
California is weird.
Which is another aspect of the attitude I see... that it's the least I can do in exchange for the use of the cart ... which is just silly. Those carts are not there as a favor to us. They were invented because if we only had hand baskets we would buy much much less stuff.
Then why not do the least you can do?

And before there were hand baskets, there were general tores where you told the worker what you needed and they got it for you. Then, yes, baskets. Shopping carts were created from baskets. Shopping carts have been improved since their invention.e

People get used to change. Fifteen years ago, if you told someone we'd all be walking around with computers in our pockets, they'd probably have laughed.

People get accustomed to change; sometimes we have to be the change. Be part of the change. Return your cart somewhere safe. Or don't buy more than you can carry. Or shop somewhere that offers curbside pickup for the order you just shopped and purchased., i.e. Wegmans.
(back then a store employee took your cans and counted and sorted them for you).
And now technology does a lot of that. Back when everything was counted by hand, fewer states had bottle deposits

Just return the cart somewhere designed for carts.
 


There is always an excuse for not wanting to do something. It doesn’t mean that any of them are valid.

I don’t throw trash on the ground because of XYZ and I don’t leave a cart in the parking lot to roll into another car because of XYZ.
 
This thread reminds me of this, but I don't think returning carts is necessarily a generational thing. View attachment 500060

This is funny. I'm Gen X, but I go out with a lot of Boomers. I'm the only one that stacks dishes & collects trash. I do it for everyone, while listening to them fuss at me for not leaving it. :laughing: Maybe, it is a Boomer thing. :p Everyone my age cleaned up, when we went out to eat, but that could have just been my group of friends. When we take our Gen Z'er out to eat, I have to remind his friends & him to clean up after themselves. None of the Gen Z'ers I know automatically stack their dishes & collect the trash. Those with kids do clean up the floor, if they make a mess. That could just be the many I know though.

You forgot Gen X.

I don't know a soul personally that leaves their table looking like that. I've seen some almost that bad at Disney, but I would never go out to eat with someone who made a mess like that.
 
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For those who don't know, Cart Narcs is a 'bit' video series done by a 'popular' radio show call (I think) 'The Woody Show'.

The premise is they wait in parking lots for people to not return their cart to a provided cart corral and then run up on those people to confront them over it. A climax of each bit is the Narc putting a magnetic bumper sticker on the person's identifying them as a horrible person. In several cases, as the shopper is attempting to simply ignore the guy and drive off, the Narc will push the persons cart behind their car so they have to stop and get back out or (in cases where they don't see it happen) they hit it.

I have to admit I was a bit shocked, and it seems to be a generational divide. The vast majority of people polled on this support the CartNarcs.

The most common opinion is that only horrible people (and some handicapped) would even think to not return a cart to the provided corral. I take my cart to the corral 95% of the time. When I don't, it's because there isn't a corral close enough. I've always seen this as a courtesy, something I'm doing to help the store out a bit if I have the time. I kind of find the idea that there is a social requirement to do this a bit offensive.

The funny thing is that the pro-Narc position seems to have an "of course you're supposed to put them in the corral" mentality as if this is something that's been true forever.

I think this may be true for European countries, my Brit friend was shocked when he saw store employees bagging his groceries. But cart corrals for the middle of parking lots were invented in 1991, and did not get used much at all until the mid 90s. I'm 45 years old, until sometime in my 20s the norm was to unload your cart and place it at the head of your parking spot. This was the way shopping worked since the late '30s when shopping carts were invented.

Which is another aspect of the attitude I see... that it's the least I can do in exchange for the use of the cart ... which is just silly. Those carts are not there as a favor to us. They were invented because if we only had hand baskets we would buy much much less stuff. The price of my groceries includes the use of a cart and someone to come collect them from the parking lot every couple of hours. Some stores, like Aldi, use a coin deposit system on the carts and they also don't bag or provide bags, and their prices are much much cheaper for most things.

Another common argument is that corralling ones cart is the least one can do to help out the low-paid worker. But we're talking about hourly workers. Every job a grocery bagger or stocker can be put to doing is going to be more demanding than wrangling carts. At 14 I was a bagger and the highlight of my shift was collecting carts or sometimes taking bottle returns (back then a store employee took your cans and counted and sorted them for you).

I see the shopping cart return, much like the can deposit machines, as another case of the stores giving us less while charging us the same. Or the self checkout aisles, a method to get the same amount of customers through while hiring fewer and fewer people. Because all that time you save the store by corralling your carts doesn't make it so the low paid worker has less to do, it just makes it so there are less of them.
This has come up before & I was surprised how many ppl cared so deeply about it. Pretty much no one in my area bothers to return them unless they’re basically parked right next to the corral. I didn’t even know it was such a big deal til I read it here. Our terrain is very very flat so it would take a pretty big gust of wind to dent a car maybe that’s why?
 


So, if you're shopping alone with your little ones, you put them safely in their car seats and... what do you do with this cart when the return is across the parking lot? Between leaving my kids or the cart, my kids win every time. A cart narc's nastiness isn't as bad as having my kids kidnapped or removed by social services for neglect.
I’m curious how you handle this dilemma when you arrive at the store. Whatever your process is on arrival, maybe do the very same things, in reverse order, when leaving?
 
This has come up before & I was surprised how many ppl cared so deeply about it. Pretty much no one in my area bothers to return them unless they’re basically parked right next to the corral. I didn’t even know it was such a big deal til I read it here. Our terrain is very very flat so it would take a pretty big gust of wind to dent a car maybe that’s why?
I was going to post the same thing. I grew up in the Mtns. of NC. People who didn't return their carts were definitely given the side-eye. If you didn't, they would roll all over the place.

I was surprised to see carts setting everywhere, when we moved to Florida. It's very common. I return ours out of habit, if there's a corral, but more than likely there isn't one. My oldest sister really went off the first time she came to visit us & saw all the carts setting in random places in the parking lot. I told here she would have to get over that really fast or she'd be upset the entire trip. Over the years she's learned to ignore it here, but still gets really hot under the collar, if a Floridian doesn't return their cart in NC. It really is two very different situations.
 
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I’m curious how you handle this dilemma when you arrive at the store. Whatever your process is on arrival, maybe do the very same things, in reverse order, when leaving?
When you arrive you don’t have a cart full of groceries to carry & your small children. You can carry them Til you get a cart.
 
I was going to post the same thing. I grew up in the Mtns. of NC. People who didn't return their carts were definitely given the side-eye. If you didn't, they would roll all over the place.

I was surprised to see carts sitting everywhere, when we moved to Florida. It's very common. I return ours out of habit, if there's a corral, but more than likely there isn't one. My oldest sister really went off the first time she came to visit us & saw all the carts sitting in random places in the parking lot. I told here she would have to get over that really fast or she'd be upset the entire trip. Over the years she's learned to ignore it here, but still gets really hot under the collar, if a Floridian doesn't return their cart in NC. It really is two very different situations.
Funny thing is I expect & prefer it. I’d rather grab a cart in the middle of the parking lot on my way in. It never would have occurred to me that anyone cares until I read it on here.
 
Funny thing is I expect & prefer it. I’d rather grab a cart in the middle of the parking lot on my way in. It never would have occurred to me that anyone cares until I read it on here.
If I had been raised in FL, I'd feel the same way. In NC it really is important to return them to a corral or back to the store. Otherwise, they'd be crashing into everything.
 
Funny thing is I expect & prefer it. I’d rather grab a cart in the middle of the parking lot on my way in. It never would have occurred to me that anyone cares until I read it on here.
You'd rather grab a cart in the middle of a parking lot and push it inside than have them sitting right inside the door?

Don't get me wrong, I generally do that to be helpful but I'd be happy to not have any to grab.
 
You'd rather grab a cart in the middle of a parking lot and push it inside than have them sitting right inside the door?

Don't get me wrong, I generally do that to be helpful but I'd be happy to not have any to grab.
Well mostly b/c there isn’t always a cart inside. But that just shows you how much of thing it is here that no one returns them & no ones cares.
 
Well, that settles it. Some people are in a unique position where they have these things called “children” - they are small tiny humans for those who are unfamiliar.

Having the “children” means you must either leave them in grave danger by walking 10 feet away from a car that you can also lock or if you’re really concerned, you can keep them in the cart, walk to the return and then walk back with the children in hand.

No, no, no - the only solution is to leave it up against another car to later roll into another car or just flat out leave it to block the space from being used after you leave.
 
If you return your cart (as you should) just make sure to lock your car if you're not parked right next to the corral. There were some cases in my town of people swiping purses out of cars while the owner was returning their cart.

On Monday afternoon, about 3:45, still light, I was in Trader Joe’s parking lot after completing the last of my Thanksgiving shopping. Pushing my shopping cart, I walked to return it to its resting spot. During that time, (about 25 seconds) a man opened my car door, which I had foolishly left unlocked (NEVER EVER DO THIS AGAIN!!) and STOLE MY PURSE with the usual treasures inside, credit cards, cash, check book, cellphone, other cards, etc. etc. I was stunned, not really upset, but left in a sense of unbelieving.
https://westportnow.com/index.php?/v3/comments/letter_unhappy_shopping_experience/
 

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