Ho! Ho! No!

[mikoyan29]

One of the many jobs I used to do at the supermarket was fetching carts. I hated that with the flame of a thousand camels especially in the winter. People would never leave them in the cart corral and my favorite was when they'd prop them up on the curb. Even better is the person that decides he needs to stop right in front of you just as you get the train rolling (a line of carts doesn't exactly stop on a dime....).

[tigress666]

I'm not religious, I just want to lie around all day drinking booze, eating chocolate, pulling crackers and watching crappy films just like everyone else. XD Is that so wrong?!

+1

I'm not religious but I just really like Christmas as it is a fun holiday .

And you know, I do feel sorry for those who work Christmas but at the same time, I'm grateful that they do. Well, grateful that the place I'm eating at the airport before my flight home will be open late Christmas Eve anyways (though if I say something it will be thank you for working on Christmas Eve so I can have a nice dinner ).

And if I wasn't flying home I don't think I'd want Christmas off cause it would be too depressing. I have no family up here and my friends are usually gone so I think I'd want to work just so I wasn't sitting bored at home.

[bainsidhe]

One of the local grocers have carts with wheels which will lock up if you try to take them outside of the parking lot. I'm sure they're more expensive, but save a lot in the long run. It drives me batty watching people walk their groceries home in a shopping cart. Those things are expensive!

[Andara Bledin]

I don't mind if people walk their groceries home, provided they walk the cart back once they've got it unloaded.

I'm sure the regular incidence of grocery carts in the pool in my courtyard helped the management's decision to turn it into a rather nasty and non-draining planter. Once it starts overflowing (we've got 15 inches of rain predicted for this week ), I'm calling the health department on their asses.

^-.-^

[chainedbarista]

problem with those who take the carts to walk their groceries home rarely, if ever, return them; i've found them abandoned along the street that leads to my home more times than a politician lies, in odd locations around the lot (to include five feet from a corral in the middle of a parking space) and as far away as five miles (no, that's not an error, the cart was five miles from home...).

when people bitch about cart shortages, i blow them off; blame those who are responsible, those who don't return them, leave them in odd places or use them like battering rams (aka the stories here...god help the fool that rams me, they will leave with their head on fire ).

[SuperRTL]

One of my neighbors works at the local grocery. One of my other neighbors is constantly using the carts to bring their stuff home. The screaming matches in the parking lot first thing in the morning are legendary and occasionally annoying when I've just gotten to bed.

However, yesterday, I finally actually saw the one who keeps swiping the carts just shove the cart into the parking lot and she hit MY car. I just about lost it on her. I then called the apartment managers and turned her in for theft. We're a no tolerance on crime complex. We have police who cruise the parking lots every few hours and if your kid gets caught drinking underage, they enforce the law. Very efficiently.

Haven't seen a cart in the apartment parking lot all day today, though. Here's hoping she took the lesson to heart.

[CaroPhoenix]

The cart stealers need this:

Rolling Tote Bag. Put your groceries in it and walk them home! Yay! And you won't have to steal a cart!

[Andara Bledin]

I just about lost it on her. I then called the apartment managers and turned her in for theft.

And if there's the merest hint of a mark on your car, you can get her for vandalism, too.

As for that rolling tote, it looks like it barely hold more than a standard large paper bag. I can't imagine anyone with a real family-sized load of groceries making do with it. We have a much larger rolling cart, but the stupid thing is so weak, that the axle bent on it's maiden voyage. And the handle is absolutely the wrong length; a little bit longer or shorter and it would be fine, but as it is, it's actually unpleasant to use for its intended purpose.

Nevertheless, I've never even considered taking a cart home. It's firmly filed under "not an option."

^-.-^

[simplyanother]

When I was little, my grandmother used to take the carts from the local Food Lion and Farm Fresh and walk them home, with her groceries in 'em. Across the highway. Love her, she taught me how to jaywalk.

We liked the Food Lion ones because they had a different cart design back then, and were more fun to play with ( I suck at describing things, but i know the "cart" portion would flip up [the whole thing, not just the flap thing like in most carts], I guess when they were pushed together... and the end had the bit where it'd open so...the cashier could unload the thing? I don't know. I just remember thinking they were cooler than the others. heh

We'd build grocery cart forts.

We were strange strange little children.

Lamely, I'm trying to find an image of one of the older carts online, but google is failing me.

I really like the little blue carts they have that don't have the baby seat in the front. I doubt they'd have been much fun to play with...


Customers like to bitch about our carts too. We got some new ones, to match the new dress code, but still have mostly the old ones. Which squeak and are falling apart. Fun.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

The shopping carts at the swamp are steaming chunks of plastic shit.

When we first got them, they pushed really hard and had to have the plastic coverings over the wheels filed down a bit, because that plastic was rubbing on the wheels.

The biggest problem is the handles come apart if you so much as look at them wrong. There's a metal bar and plastic caps over the ends of the bar to hold the cart together. Those caps like to come off and the bar slides right out. Then you have nothing holding the cart together.

We started out with 300 (I think) of those carts when we first got them. We're down to about 150 now. Corporate won't shell out the funds to keep fixing them, so usually when a cart breaks, it gets shoved out back and then tossed when we get enough broken carts to fill a dumpster.

We had to borrow a bunch of carts from the grocery store across the way to get us through Black Friday. During our other busy sales, we run out of carts very quickly, and there aren't many of them outside because they're all being used by customers in the store. Corporate doesn't seem to have any plans to replace the carts anytime soon, or get us more.

[Trixie]

Right now we have some carts that should probably put out of their misery. The sides are bent and the front part doesn't fall down right. Most people can get it front down and use it. Some people will bang it a few times and give up. A few will try a few times, give up and use another cart. But I think my favorite are the people that don't get the front down and use the cart anyway and just put their stuff on top of it.

[Mikkel]

As for that rolling tote, it looks like it barely hold more than a standard large paper bag. I can't imagine anyone with a real family-sized load of groceries making do with it. We have a much larger rolling cart, but the stupid thing is so weak, that the axle bent on it's maiden voyage. And the handle is absolutely the wrong length; a little bit longer or shorter and it would be fine, but as it is, it's actually unpleasant to use for its intended purpose.

You could try this one. I know that Winther still make it. You could even contact the homepage owner and ask how his trailer does after 10 years .

[BeeMused]

As for that rolling tote, it looks like it barely hold more than a standard large paper bag. I can't imagine anyone with a real family-sized load of groceries making do with it. We have a much larger rolling cart, but the stupid thing is so weak, that the axle bent on it's maiden voyage. And the handle is absolutely the wrong length; a little bit longer or shorter and it would be fine, but as it is, it's actually unpleasant to use for its intended purpose.

In Germany those things are nicknamed Hacken-Porsche Heel-Porsche. I got one too, they are great for shopping. The good ones are really expensive, but it's money well spent. I took time to find the right handle length and shape for me, and ended up with the most expensive one, so typical for me.
My Hacken-Porsche is over 10 years old now and still in good shape. I've transported loads of more than 60 pounds with ease, so the weekly shopping is no problem.

[Ironclad Alibi]

Lamely, I'm trying to find an image of one of the older carts online, but google is failing me.

I think these two are of the style you mentioned.

Grocery cart #1

Grocery cart #2

[protege]

I once had a two-wheeled "shopping cart" that I sometimes used to deliver newspapers. It was basically a wire frame on wheels, which could be folded up and hung on the wall. Of course, slipping the handle over the rear stakes on one of the Radio-Flyers meant I had extra cargo room...just the thing when the holidays came around, and the Press grew to about 3 times its usual thickness Had to be careful if I was out at night though--the 'addition' covered up the reflectors.