Supermarkets and mass merchandisers can be hazardous to your health. On any store visit you have a 50-percent chance of being run over by a recklessly driven shopping cart.
Zombie-like shoppers and screaming urchins push carts with reckless abandon. They crash into one another and bystanders without the slightest concern, and they almost never apologize or accept culpability.
I saw one woman reading box labels. Her cart was parked in the middle of the aisle. Another woman deliberately rammed it instead of asking the lady to move it. The parked cart rudely careened into the backside of the oblivious label-reader. Not a guilty glance or a spoken word.
On another occasion I witnessed a young girl pushing a cart, running at a full gallop. She crashed into an employee stocking shelves, nearly knocking him down. The only uttered word was “Whoops.” The injured employee limped off.
I was once injured while holding onto the outside of the cart. An absent-minded jerk smashed his cart into my fingers. It drew blood. The guy said, “S-o-o-o sorry.”
Supermarkets should offer cart-driving courses.
More on shopping, loosely
A fixidiot succeeds, with difficulty
Thanks! Nice essay. I love the video. I agree with the shopping cart theory. However, what’s up with stores that offer no corrals in the parking lot and require folks to return their carts to the point of origin, for example, Hi Neighbor on Airline? Have they given up on us? For the record, I continue to shop there and return my carts, ensuring my status as a worthy member of society.