My husband and I were shopping at Fred Meyer’s today to pick up a few little groceries, odds and ends, and buy a new shower curtain, since our old one was getting a little ratty around the edges.
We ran around and grabbed what was on our list: Milk, egg beaters, baking soda, bleach, Q-tips, Mac n’ Cheese for hubby’s lunch, white glue, a case of soda, and shampoo. We got a cart because neither of us wanted to lug around the two gallons of milk and the big case of soda, or the bleach.
So, we cart on down to where they keep the shower curtains. We parked our cart at the end of the aisle, making sure it wasn’t blocking anything vital (it was a display of large wicker bins/hampers, which were also available in the same aisle where our cart wasn’t blocking). It was a very quiet day, not many customers, and no one in our area. We aren’t very picky, and didn’t spend any time browsing - we found a neutral colour and grabbed the package. While my husband headed back to the cart at the end of the aisle, I grabbed a shower mat and waved it at him to show him I was buying it. This all took under a minute.
We get to the end of the aisle… and no cart. No one can be seen. We look down each aisle, wondering if we’d left it parked at an angle by accident and it had “wandered” down an aisle. Nope. The cart is gone.
It was likely a saleperson thinking it was left behind and took it to put everything back, but how odd. We didn’t hear anything, and didn’t see anything when we came back to our cart. We never leave anything like purses or wallets or any personal items in the cart, so there was no reason for a thief to take it. It was full of groceries. Could it have been a person who came in, had the exact same items on their list as we had on ours, and said, “Oh! How convenient!” 
Honestly, I could understand if we’d left the cart in someone’s way, or blocking traffic, or blocking merchandise that wasn’t available in the aisle, and/or if we’d left it for a long period of time. But when I say under a minute, I’m being generous, it was probably even less than that. My husband doesn’t dally - he hates shopping. We get in, we get out. We only left the cart so it didn’t take up space in the narrow aisle, and because we were going to be… well, under a minute. What’s a little weirder is that I usually stay with the cart myself, because I have this weird paranoia that someone will come along and take our cart. If I felt safe enough to leave it for that short of a time… come on! Who was this masked shopping cart thief?!
Anyway. It sucked, because then we had to go back and get all of our items over again. My poor husband had to put up with twice the shopping. 