Category: Carts

As I have stated many times, I don’t get political in this column. And I won’t start today. That said, this column addresses some topics that bleed into the realm of health and society, which somehow is now kinda politics. But I offer this initial disclaimer up because, should this be posted on any of the Facebook pages of the local newspapers my column is carried in, I vow I will not go in and read any comments because I believe newspaper comment sections are one of the top causes of high blood pressure in the country, and no one needs hypertension in their life.

That said, I’d like to talk about going to the grocery store in the new world we live in. Thus, some thoughts:

• I wear a mask when I go to the grocery store. I get that there are some very strong opinions on both sides. I represent only one side: mine. I wear a mask. If you don’t, well, I’m not the mask police. If you don’t think I should wear a mask, well, OK. You’re also not the mask police. So let’s get our milk and dog food and move on.
• I am not a fan of people in my personal space, and that is not because of a pandemic. This has been a theme of my life for decades. If I strategically position my cart where you cannot get within six feet of me, this is not because of COVID-19. Trust me, I was doing this years ago.
• Stay. With. Your. Cart. Again, this is not something that is new with me, but with the new world we live in, it’s not too much to ask that, should you forget an item in the produce aisle, you take your cart with you to get it. If you leave your cart at the avocados and then jaunt off to get some lettuce 20 feet away, you’ve kinda occupied all the territory in between, and because I’m a pretty respectful guy, I patiently stand there waiting to get into that territory between you and the cart. And if you are a fellow shopper wearing a mask, my thought is, “Hey, you’re feeling kinda health conscious and probably doing that whole social distancing thing. So, yeah…”
• Please be mindful of when you meet a fellow shopper you haven’t seen for a while and want to catch up. Personally, I am at the grocery store to get groceries, but I get that people can catch up with old friends on occasion. Great! But if you are catching up with someone while you are at the end of the aisle, blocking all passage out of said aisle, a little personal awareness (and maybe utilization of your peripheral vision) would help you realize someone is waiting to go to the next aisle.
• If you are in stores where there are one-way aisles, could you be mindful of that? I mean, it’s not a whole lot to ask. Quite frankly, I kinda hope it stays that way. And if I get to the end of my shopping list and find that I have to lap down a different one-way aisle to loop back and get my item, I embrace it. A few extra steps in my day!
• Lastly, let’s address carts. I am still not a fan of anyone leaving them in a parking spot, much less just casting them aside to drift on their own. And I have also advocated for, when you park, grabbing a stray one to bring inside with you. The grocery stores near me have done a great job at sanitizing carts that are ready for use, and I hope they continue doing that. I will continue to return my cart to the proper corral, but I have to say I am of late less reluctant to go gather a stray. Cart Warriors, you, too, have a pass on that.

Who knows how history will treat all of this pandemic and our responses. As I have said many times over the last few months, you will never be able to prove I was too cautious. But everyone has to make their own choices. That said, I do hope one of those choices is to continue to give me my personal space.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

Remember that awesome scene in “The Untouchables” when Eliot Ness and Agent Stone have a shootout with the mafia guys in the middle of a train station?

What do you mean you’ve never seen “The Untouchables”? Sigh. What am I going to do with you. Alright, go rent it. Or piece it together through YouTube clips. Meet you back here in two hours.

OK, so now, awesome right? Well, the tensest part of that scene is obviously the baby stroller rolling away from Ness, who tries to simultaneously catch the stroller and shoot roughly 4,000 bad guys.

Ness and Stone ultimately shoot at least 3,998 of them and save the baby in super cool heroic fashion.

It took two of them to do it. I only needed me.

It happened the other day in the parking lot of my local grocery store. As I have told you far more times than you have wanted to hear, I consider myself a leader in the cart return movement. Carts have for generations been a noble working breed in our stores, and they deserve the respect and care of being returned to their corrals after use.

The cart army has grown over the years, and I believe the tide is definitely turning in our favor, to the point where serious federal legislation is being discussed to make abandoning carts a federal offense. (And by “serious” I mean “imaginary.”)

Nonetheless we are making a difference in the parking lot world, one cart at a time.

But every now and again, a cart goes rogue without the discourteous hand of an abandoning shopper.

I was turning down a lane looking for a spot. In this aisle, there are two free spots at the very front. Then, on either side, the next eight are reserved, for handicapped, expectant moms and veterans. If you are a handicapped pregnant veteran, you can pretty much just triple park and no one can say a word to you.

The first two spots were taken, so I was prepared to head toward the end of the aisle, which is fine, because I don’t think walking an extra 40 feet is exactly a trial of Job.

As I headed down the aisle, I saw the nose of a cart emerge from behind a car on my left. It inched out a little more. And a little more. And then it emerged free of the car, no shopper’s hand to guide it. The shopper was halfway in her car situating some groceries as the fairly full cart began barreling down the parking lot.

Cue the violin music and go to slow motion. “Untouchables” time.

I hit the gas and turned the wheel just enough to steer to the right of the cart. The cart was now about 10 feet from her car and picking up speed.

I saw her emerge from her car and see the cart speeding away. Her eyes went wide. I can’t be certain, but I think she may have screamed (in slow motion, of course) “MY BABY!”

My car caught up with the cart and I nosed to the left, setting myself on a collision course for it. I extended my arm out the window and caught the front the of the cart just before it touched my side mirror. I eased us both to a stop, put my car in park and emerged from the car. I turned the cart around as the woman was approaching me. She looked mortified. “I am so sorry!” she said. I just tipped my fedora, nodded and said, “Ma’am.”

After I parked my car and was heading to the store, the woman whose baby (OK, groceries) I had saved was finishing unloading her groceries. I approached her and said, “I’ll get your cart. Again.” Wink. Pretty sure she swooned a smidge.

We Untouchables get that all the time.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Charleston. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

I knew there would be a lot of changes when I moved my family to a new city.

New schools. New job. Learning my way around. But it’s nice to know that, wherever you go, you can always guarantee one discomfort of home: people not returning their shopping carts.

The other night, a woman approached me and said, “You don’t know me, and I don’t know you, but I just wanted to tell you that I ALWAYS put my cart up.”

Ma’am, you are the reason I should carry around medals stamped with Decent Human on them and hand them out to the unsung heroes of society.

I thought my job was done.
It has been a while since I have written about grocery carts. I thought the cart warriors had won the war, and all carts were being returned to their proper places. Sadly, I have noticed of late that those in rebellion of common courtesy have begun to pop up again. We drove the villains to their hiding spots, but they have become emboldened again, emerging from their dark hiding spots to wreak havoc on humanity.

It’s been a while since I stepped up on my soapbox and preached about the evils of grocery cart abuse, but I think it’s high-time I jump on up there, get a chorus behind me and sing the gospel of – RESPONSIBILITY!