I admit it officer Obie, I put that envelope under that pile of garbage.
One of my employees grew up calling these folks “jahoonks” (spelling?). Her mom was Polish, and she always thought this word was one that everyone used. Anyway, we all use the word now.
I don’t always return the cart hangs head in shame. Sometimes doing so would leave my infant alone in the car for a minute or two and dangit, I guess I’m just paranoid about what could happen. I try to park next to a cart corral so that I don’t end up having to choose between Pissing Off Somebody Who Might Be Watching and Endangering My Baby’s Life, but it ain’t always possible 
How do you get by never criticizing someone else when you see them do something that you feel isn’t right or that you don’t agree with? Your implication that you are above criticizing others, or that you never would criticize others, is pretty high-handed itself.
You give a valid excuse for not going any real distance (abandoning your child) to go to the “cart” area. But there’s no excuse for leaving a acart inside the area of a valid parking space. It can easily be pushed up onto an island. I can’t recall the last time I’ve been in a shopping center that was pure “flat”. But I guess they do exist…
Leaving carts adrift in parking lots isn’t all that heinous, especially with semi-valid excuses that you put foward. But as BwanaBob espoused, please anchor them so they don’t seek out my vehicle and de-pretty it.
Me too. It’s just easier that way. However, have you ever thought of maybe returning the cart while your baby is still in it and then removing your baby and carrying him back to the car?
You know who else is sorry? People who can’t park. I was at a mall the other day and people just did not seem to know how to park. I admit the lines weren’t always 100% visible through the snow, but c’mon people! If all the cars are parked straight, what do you suppose the odds are of every single one of them being wrong and you, the only right-thinking person in the whole city, must now take it upon yourself to set them straight by parking at an angle? Or how 'bout the people who have pulled too far forward, blocking the space in front of them? WTF? Or their Evil Opposites, the people who don’t pull forward enough (one causes the other, I’m sure, the bastards) and wind up leaving the entire rear half of their car hanging out in the driveway? Which leads me to the people who can’t seem to tell which way you’re supposed to drive in parking lots, especially in angled parking lots. As if the painted arrows on the ground weren’t enough, you can tell which way you should be going by the angle of the parked cars. Are you fucking dense?
I just deleted about six paragraphs of car and driving related rants before realizing that this isn’t really the place. The people above though, they really are sorry. Or maybe not, but I can’t let it go. Honestly, how hard is it to park a damn car?
And people who don’t wash their kids up, what’s up with them? Crusty snot and food particles all over their face, greasy hair, dirty fingernails, etc. Gross. They can’t do it themselves, asshole, and you, as a parent, are obligated to do it for them. These are the kids that get picked on in grade school for smelling funny and wearing dirty clothes, and grow up to become Stinky, the middle/junior highschooler that no one can stand to be around because of the reek, since his parents never taught him anything about personal hygiene, so then he’s an outcast who gets food thrown at him at lunch and nasty things shoved in his backpack/locker, and then he steals a gun from Dad’s closet and shoots 18 of his classmates before offing himself. Think about that, you lazy fucks.
Lazy parents might be the sorriest people on the planet.
Maybe we should give Smeg a break. Perhaps he’s deduced my IRL ID and knows what a self-righteous a*****e I am. 
Hmm. This would work in decent weather. Let’s see…here in my neck of the woods it has rained 7 of the last 8 weekends (when I do most of my shopping). Before that it was too freakin’ cold to carry a baby around outside any more than necessary. Yes, I always prop the cart up on an island if I do not take it to a corral–geez, I’m not one of those sorry people who just leave them scattered around the lot. I am of a more lofty, civilized sorry sort.
I’m sorry, Emony, but I’m calling bullshit on that. If it’s too cold out to carry your baby from the cart corral to your car, your baby should be better dressed for the weather. Having kids sounds like a huge hassle, but it doesn’t exempt anybody from the rules of the society we’re all trying to live in.
How about people who don’t buckle their kids into carseats/seat belts?
Absent parents who never show up for parent-teacher meetings, or baseball games, or birthday parties?
That ever so lovely neighbor who wants to put an end to the stray cats by leaving a bit of antifreeze here and there.
The parents who have no clue their son is playing in my house with my own child, and wouldn’t care even if they did know.
The students who ride the city bus to school, but can’t find the energy to pull their asses off the seat and offer it to an older woman, forcing her to stand and ride to work herself.
The dickhead who honked in anger, complete with the scowling face, the screaming out the window, and the raised finger when my car broke down in the street. Think I wanted to spend that Saturday afternoon blocking traffic? Asshole.
Sorry you don’t like it. And ohmigosh, I’m now trying to “exempt myself from the rules of society” because I sometimes park the cart on an island instead of in the corral? Give me a frickin’ break :rolleyes:
::Desperately attempts to find worms and get them back in the can::
::Fails::
::Notes message from Pandora on cellphone::
Why is leaving your baby in the car for a minute or two endangering its life? I assume you can lock the car. What exactly are you afraid of?
It appears you have run afoul of Zymurgy’s Law of Expanding Systems Dynamics which states–
Once you have opend a can of worms it is impossible to re-can them except by using a larger can.
This is something I kinda wondered. I would occasionally leave Fang in the car and return a cart to the caddy. I figured he was safe as long as I could see the car. But then I remembered that now-a-days it is totally drilled into parents that if you don’t keep a constant eye on your child 24/7 then you are somehow an awful parent.
I suppose this is the reasoning people who takes shortcuts use to rationalize their behaviour. I’m not trying to be snarky here; you have reasons for doing what you do, and they seem reasonable to you. I believe that most people we see doing things that we don’t particularly agree with have their own set of reasons for doing them.
:eek:
If I had a neighbor like that, I’d be outside with the hose, in all weather, diluting the antifreeze puddles to the point of non-toxicity.
And I might even save a little hose-spray for the neighbor himself. :wally
When I see people walking through a door that someone has held open for them (usually me) and not thanking the person, I just respond with a loud-enough “You’re welcome.”
Given the choice of stomaching those ever-ubiquitous cathedral doors :rolleyes:, or those who don’t understand that the point of being nice or friendly is not to bask in the glow of anticipated gratitude–guess which one I’d choose?
As a deaf person I don’t always feel confident enough to use my voice in public in unprompted situations. Hence, not always quick, loud, or clear enough with the hearty “Thanks for opening the door that was right in front of me!” or the relieved sigh of “Gee–you sure prevented the swingy thing from knocking me unconscious.”
I’ve been glared at and sarcastically you’re-welcomed a many times.
Don’t get me wrong. "Thank you"s are nice if you need the attention bad enough to shrill about it; but when it comes down to it, there are people out there being made to feel second-rate for…walking through a doorway. That’s pretty farked up.
So to offset the thank-you whores of the world, I prefer to be friendly without looking back at the recpient of my noble act to see whether they give a shit.
Reported in News of the Weird, 20 March 2005:
Emphasis mine.