The Miss-Adventures of a Southern Belle: 25 Things about Me: #15

15. I hate with an unholy rage people who do not put shopping carts in the cart corral.

Here are the top 5 things I hate with an unholy rage. I’m only going to list these five because I don’t want to blow all my blog material on this one blog.

1. Auburn

2. V-neck T-shirts

3. Jeff Fisher (totally and completely irrational, I know)

4. Baking (moving up from a lower ranking with a complete demolishment of my goodwill)

5. Not putting shopping carts in a cart corral

As you can see, for me, there are only a few things that are worse than leaving your cart outside the cart corral. It’s just a common courtesy.

Picture if you will… I come over to your home and borrow a pair of shoes. I wear them around and when I’m finished with the shoes, instead of returning them to your home, I leave them in your front yard. Now picture another 50 pairs of shoes littered all over your yard. Not all at once, but several scattered all over the place every hour on the hour. See how frustrating that would be? That’s how daunting I liken the prospect of having to corral all those errant carts left outside a cart corral.

You could also look at it this way. With all the carts roaming free throughout the parking lot, they are more likely to bang into your car and leave a dent or take up that valuable up-front parking space. Don’t you value your car or the car of others? Wouldn’t you want your walk to the store to be a short distance? Solution: Carts in cart corral.

I hear you saying to yourself, “Some stores I frequent don’t have a cart corral.” I hear you and would say that you might want to consider shopping at a different store or be prepared to return the cart back to the store yourself. I take that very dilemma into consideration when deciding where I will shop.

The following are my tips to remedy the temptation to leave your cart anywhere except in a cart corral:

1. Buy only what you can carry with your 2 hands. Granted, this will not work for those of you shopping for a large family, unless you plan on making a trip to the store every day. If that’s not going to work for you then maybe consider a family fun day at the grocery store. Hey, the more hands, the less need to take a cart out to your car and leave outside the cart corral.

2. Park close to the corral. This will eliminate a lot of steps for returning the cart to the corral or having to return the cart back to the store.

3. Take advantage of the bag person. Should you have any inkling that you don’t think you can make the extra steps to the cart corral or to return the cart back to the store, then accept that bag person’s offer to help you out to your car. Guess what? They’ll take it back for you.

Another thing I’d like to stress is being a good cart-returning example. When I arrive at a store that uses carts and I spy an errant cart that has been left out of the corral, I first, “bless” the person that left it and then, take it in with me. If I see someone committing the act of leaving an errant cart, my first instinct is to glare at them, but then I will ask if I can take it in for them. I’m always hoping that my actions will inspire people to be more cart-responsible and return the carts to the proper place – the cart corral. Here is how I’m influencing others.