First hand
I’m in store, I go for a cart because I’m going to buy a couple of storage containers for my impending move.
I look down at a sole cart, pulled out and waiting for the next taker. The fold down flap is dirty, as if the cart has been sitting out in the rain. I wonder how it can have gotten so dirty.
I briefly look at the other carts, stuck together in neat, orderly rows. No, I will take this one, rather than be picky. I don’t plan on eating from the cart.
Then I begin to push it, and too late, I realize the error of choosing this cart.
Screech, squeal, it loudly proclaims in protest to being used, to being put to its proper use again. It’s obviously a former traveler that spent months out in the rain. Wheels getting rusty, creaky.
The cart is hard to control. I weigh briefly the idea of returning it or abandoning it midstream. But I press on. I don’t want to be carrying unwieldly tubs through the whole store as people press by with their functional, straight-steering carts.
Instead, people stare at me. I try to shrink down into myself. I’m not enjoying this. I look down at the offending noisemaker, and realize the rest of the cart is quite scummy too, with something dried and crusty hanging from the bottom of the plastic grating.
Eww. I feel dirty just touching this cart. Who knows what it’s been used for? Who knows how long it was sitting outside before being rescued, or perhaps taken back against its will, to it store of origin.
I feel myself hating this cart. It squeals some more. I try to roll it in ways to minimize the noise, rolling over an area of carpet now. No, the noise dampens only slightly.
I find that when I’m turning it around, it makes less noise, but I can’t navigate the entire store, always turning, like that. I would get nowhere, and then surely people would stare even more.
I reach my destination, abandon the cart as much as possible as I look at tubs. I go briefly to look at clothing, leaving the cart nearby, trusting it not to wander far, like a child. But then someone comes near, and I realize I have left my purse in there. I reunite with the cart resentfully. I know that if I find someone’s abandoned cart in the middle of the store, I will steal it.
The cart is the reason I don’t continue to putter through the store. I can’t keep rolling it, and then abandoning it nearby, pretending that there’s nothing wrong.
Perhaps this cart is happy to be at the store again. But I doubt it. It protests too much. It hasn’t been restored to its former cleanness.
I pay for my stuff quickly, and my hands feel dirty. I hate to touch anything. I put the other things I’ve purchased inside the tubs, which I think can withstand the touch of the cart.
I roll on, followed by noise, as I make my way to the car. I look around for the nearest cart corral to abandon my unwilling albatross, but the closest one is not near.
I toy with abandoning the stupid thing right next to my car, in an open spot, and figure it would serve the store employees right for not washing this cart before putting it back into service. Or serve them right for not oiling the wheels. Surely, if someone had to roll this back, they would hear it, grating in their ears like nails on a chalkboard. They would have mercy on it, set it free.
But I’m also the sort of person that never leaves carts whereever they fall, and I obediently return the cart back to where the cart corral sign says I should. Safe and sound, until the next user.
I try to remember when I felt an ethical urge to return carts to corrals. Probably when I started really seeing the store employees pushing the things through MI slush. But last I remember, there are automated ‘cart pushers’ now that can steer and push a huge line o’ carts.
I think I’ve always done it in subconscious obedience to signs telling us to return carts to keep prices low.
I’d say more consciously, I want to minimize work for the store employees. I don’t like things being out of order, either. That being another reason. I don’t like finding a cart next to my car because someone is too lazy to put theirs away, so I do as I’d have done unto me. Put the cart away so it won’t take up a space or roll into someone’s car.
My dad has always operated under the theory that people are paid to do those things, though he usually applies that to waitresses and cleaning up your messy table. My theory is: nobody is really paid enough to do these unpleasant things. Yes, there are people at the store who are paid to collect carts, but that doesn’t mean that they are paid enough, or that they enjoy their jobs.