The Shopping Cart

 

 

Every time I go to the supermarket I have to deal with the whole cart issue.  Some stores want you to deposit money for the cart, thereby ensuring that you'll bring it back.  It makes sense.  I used to live near a store where more than a few people took the carts home, or at least to the  bust stop.  It certainly cost the store money to go out and round up these carts (imagine the advertisement for this job in the paper--wanted:  shopping cart wrangler)  They tried using a deposit system for their carts but all they got were a bunch of busted locks, and then they had to hire someone with a pickup truck to go out and wrangle all those carts.

So, I can see the financial expediency of having a deposit system.  It might make me feel like a criminal, but the carts get returned.  It might make me opt for a small carry basket (in which case I buy less because the teeny weenie basket gets full and heavy quickly) but the carts get returned.

The biggest problem that I usually encounter is that I don't have the specific coin they are looking for when I enter the supermarket.  Sometimes they want a quarter, sometimes they want a loonie (that's a one dollar coin for those of you not familiar with Canadian currency).  I have yet to come across one that requires a twoonie, (if you understand loonie, you should be able to figure out twoonie), but I am sure that day is coming.  They say you can easily get change from cashier, but when the store is busy, or everyone is using credit or debit cards.... you just might need more patience than you have.

Sometimes I am forced to use my lucky quarter (I can't really explain why it's lucky, it just is) and then I can't simply pass the cart off to a person racing up to me with another (and probably unlucky) quarter in their outstretched hand.  They give me dirty looks, but there's nothing I can do about it.

One store I went to had an ingenious system.  They put up a notice that if the carts were removed from the store area they would cease to function.  Psychologically this worked great.  What's more, this wasn't just a cool ploy, it was the truth.  One of my friends felt pretty foolish when suddenly their cart stopped moving and would go no further.  This system is probably quite expensive, but I would certainly prefer it.  My hope is that in the future, shopping carts will navigate their own way back to the store and into the line of shopping carts.  That will be perfect...until they rise up against us.