"Kart Carma"

[ShadowTiger]

Thread title is an interesting little letter mixup for the purposes of the story. Obviously.

I'm already out of the building, in the corner of the parking lot, waiting for my ride. Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone wheel a shopping cart out to his SUV. He unpacks his stuff, and leaves the cart in the middle of the next parking spot, right in the middle so that no car can get into the spot.

Pretty awful of him, really. He gets into his SUV. But the cart isn't finished. No. The cart rolls forward slightly, as the front wheels slooowly turned back around toward an angle they could roll forward into, and rolled down with the ever so slight natural slope of the parking lot and right into the path of his SUV.

But he didn't see the shopping cart, as it was already low below the line of sight of his SUV. As the SUV pulled out, the cart in front of it got caught between the SUV and a pole to its side, and scraped up the side of the SUV something awful.

Return your carts, kiddo.

[Kristev]

I loved watching trolleys roll into cars that people left there. Of course, if someone else left them there, I'd try to intervene, usually succeed.

[Mytical]

You just KNOW the SC is going to try to get the store for his mistake. Hope they have security cameras.

[Kristev]

And notices on the cart pens that say "Store is not responsible for damage to cars from shopping trolleys."

[mikoyan29]

I always put my cart in the corral. One of my duties when I was a cashier and there were no baggers around was to go fetch carts. I hated it. I especially hated the people that thought they were doing me a favor by tilting the front wheels so they hook the island like some boat.

[Cazzi]

I loved watching trolleys roll into cars that people left there. Of course, if someone else left them there, I'd try to intervene, usually succeed.

I do that too

A notable time once was when mum & I came out of a store that was situated on a slope. Mum had only bought a couple of things, I didn't buy anything, so we'd used a hand basket instead of a trolley.
Of course, someone had just abandoned a trolley at the top of the slope where the slightest breeze could set it rolling.... and one did, aiming it straight for a rather nice new car at the bottom of the slope.
Me being less prone to wonky knees then took off after it & grabbed it before it hit the car & wheeled it back up to the store to put away when an elderly woman, who had come out of the store behind us, piped up in a very snotty voice..
"the idea is to put the trolleys away properly so that sort of thing doesn't happen!"

Of course my reply was to tell her to go find the idiot that left it there in the first place & tell them that, rather than hassling people that were trying to stop accidents!
Cue cat butt face

[Raveni]

This is why we have cameras in the lot, folks. Its not for your safety, its because this person will surely try to get the store to pay for the damage to his car, despite whatever notices may be posted.

At my other job, when I had someone threaten to sue because they hit a gate with their car, we sent them the bill for the gate repair along with pictures of them trying to tailgate another car in.

[LillFilly]

Ah, yes, cameras are our friends!

So, do you know what he did afterwards? Did he call the police; cause I hope they laughed at him! You could have been a witness too!

[JustaCashier]

I rescued an anonymous car from a speeding, rampaging grocery cart once.

This would be at least 15 years ago, when I still had a running car. I had just parked, and gotten out of my car in a grocery store lot that was on a slope. I saw this grocery cart heading straight for, IIRC, a Jetta. The car was parked on the edge of the lot, and I don't think there was a car immediately on either side, or for even several parking spaces on each side. But, of course, the cart is heading straight for the car.

I go running after it, successfully tackle it, saving the the poor helpless Jetta, (And IIRC, it was within just a few short feet of hitting.)

So, I head towards the store, pushing the evil cart, all smug and proud of myself, and only wishing that the owner of the cart had come out of the store at the right time to witness my death defying heroic act, (And that preferably, the owner was a hot chick! ) and be forever grateful.

It wasn't until later, and I honestly don't remember if it was just moments later, or years later, that I realized there was an at least equal chance that had the cart hit, and the owner or even someone else assuming they were being a good samaritan, would have seen me chasing the cart, may have assumed that I was the one that was careless with the cart in the first place, and blame me for any damage to the Jetta.


Mike

[Department stores *sigh*]

One time we had just finished all the carts in the lot except for one. A customer had just filled his whole car with way to much stuff to fit in it. Honestly he had 3 friends with him and the had stuff on their laps and shoulders. Do they put their cart away? Of course not. They leave it behind and just like in the OP's story the cart rolles and they hit it hurtin their car something fierce.

What I find even funnier is they had a huge parking lot that was empty of carts except for one........and they manage to run into it

[firecat88]

Here's a personal story about what can happen to people who don't put shopping carts away properly:

At this one really old shopping center in Denver, there was this huge...it was either a Hispanic market or an Asian market. I forget which. Anyway, there was no designated area outside to put shopping carts when people were finished with them, so they pretty much just got left strewn all over the parking lot. It made things very interesting on certain days, such as the day that this story takes place.

My parents were inside the store, and my sister and I were waiting in the car. We were just hanging out and listening to music when the wind started to pick up pretty bad. All of the sudden, no fewer than 6 shopping carts were all making a beeline for our car. My sister *screamed*, got out of the car, and hurried to divert their path. All the while, I'm giggling because I've got 'Ride of the Valkyries' going through my head. Even today, 10 years after Attack of the Shopping Carts, we still laugh about it.

[Kristev]

Don't forget, I actually used to be a cart-gatherer for Wal-Mart. Three long years, and then another long year of being janitorial, but in name only because nearly all the time I'd be scheduled and forced to go out there. I've seen all sorts of things happen with shopping trolleys you wouldn't care to think about.

Some advice: Don't use them. More people will try to use them as a place to throw dirty diapers. No, I will not remove it for you. Hard enough having to run around the entire grocery side of the lot to keep the bay full when, as usual, I'm on my own all day and there's a million more consumers than there is of me.

At least they finally stopped that nonsense when I got back on blood pressure pills.