To the editor: People failing to return their shopping carts has long been a pet peeve of mine. You borrowed it, so return it. And, if you don’t feel safe where you shop — a justification used by psychologist Leslie Dobson, whose TikTik video set off this discussion — then shop somewhere else.
The most egregious offense is leaving carts in the handicapped parking zones. These are the areas designed to be walkways for people with disabled placards.
In some places, stores charge 25 cents to release a cart, money that’s given back to the shopper upon returning the cart. The loss of your quarter helps pay for the person who must collect the unreturned carts. This is a great system that I wish all stores would adopt.
Until then, just take responsibility and return what you borrowed.
Robert Bachmann, Los Angeles
..
To the editor: This entire piece ignores the obvious — civility.
Rather than choosing belligerence and an expletive (“you can judge me all you want” and “f— off”), Dobson could have instead chosen to say something like this:
“As a single mom obliged to shop with my two young children, I don’t feel safe returning carts in parking lots while my kids are in the car. I also fear for my own safety. Statistics show that more than 200 children a year are abducted in parking lots. Comment if you feel the same.”
Do we choose to be confrontational simply to garner attention on social media? Or have we evolved to be truly, simply, purely rude?
Julie Atherton, Tustin
..
To the editor: I admit that I have been a “cart narc” in the past. Mothers with small children and elderly persons were not my target. Here is one example:
I saw a 40-ish able-bodied man spend a considerable amount of time wrestling his shopping cart over the edge of a planter in the parking lot instead of returning it. As he was getting in his car, I stopped and said sweetly, “Excuse me.” He looked expectantly at me with a big smile.
I continued: “I can’t help but notice that you are wearing a Yale sweatshirt, bought a case of expensive wine and are driving a new BMW, but you don’t have the smarts to place your cart in the f— corral.”
As I drove away, I watched him in my rearview mirror. He stood there, scratched his head and brought the cart back to the store.
Laura Alcorn, Poway
..
To the editor: The best reason for returning shopping carts is to make sure they are properly stowed and not left to wander or block parking spaces. They do, after all, have wheels.
I learned to stash my cart because of an incident some years ago. I found a space in a crowded lot at the grocery store, and I pulled into it even when I saw that there was a cart near the front of that space. I tried to nudge it out of the way with my car a little bit.
Unfortunately, one nudge set it free to roll down toward a car ahead of me. The driver of that car happened to return at that moment, and she yelled at me for dinging her vehicle — rightly, though I don’t know whether her car had been scratched or not.
Although the mistake was mine, the problem had been created unnecessarily by the one who left the wandering cart.
Mona Baumgartel, Encinitas
..
To the editor: On June 14, where one leaves a shopping cart was front-page news in The Times’ print edition — not immigration, climate change or homelessness.
Good to know we are officially out of problems.
Joel Miller, Torrance
