now this is an evil idea. Mind if I borrow it? 
I’m curious, SouthernStyle – did you leave the cart behind the van? Or did you move it?
(Begin rant) I totally agree with your “I hate Wal-Mart” attitude. I hate them too. I hate that they always build either just outside city limits, or require tax abatements. They contribute essentially nothing to the community, and often result in severe economic problems for main street businesses.
(Rant continues) In the community where I work, Wal-mart has essentially moved the hub of commerce a mile out of town. Now there’s a traffic accident every week as people swerve across the 4-lane highway to get in the (poorly marked) entrance. We have to put in another stoplight on the highway to fix this. So far, we have 2 banks, a grocery store, and two strip malls moved in next to Wal-Mart. Across the street we now have a gas station, hotel, and restaraunt.
(Even more rant) I won’t even get into the lack of customer service inside a Wal-Mart, or the generally mediocore quality of the merchandise. If a friend of family member wants to go to Wal-Mart, I’ll just sit in the parking lot. It’s better that way, because if I go in I tend to give the poor SOB’s working there real grief.
(End of rant) There, that’s better.
I like the idea of trashing their carts. I can see putting one behind Quislings truck. He wouldn’t even notice! You could attach a whole string to the bumper hitch. I wonder how stable a shopping cart is at 70mph?
Our car is dinged up anyway, so I’m not worried about carts so much. I can still sympathise with the above posts, though. If being inconciderate was a crime, there would be a LOT more folks in jail.
I have a HUGE problem with able-bodied people who will block up a lane in a parking lot while waiting for someone to pull out just so they can get a space closer to the store rather than walk a few extra feet. If someone in the car was elderly or on cruches or some such thing, then I’d be sympathetic - but that’s rarely the case. I once saw a woman block traffic for a full three minutes to pull into a handicap spot - and then walk to the store on two perfectly good legs! There was no evidence of disability and no blue handicap sign in her car at all. Had I the “testicular fortitude,” I would’ve knocked on her window while she was holding up traffic and told her to move her car.
And to tie this in with another thread on the board, the woman DID have a mullet haircut! 
Patty
P.S. I also have a problem with pedestrians who walk straight down the middle of the lane and then have the nerve to get pissy with drivers trying to get around them.
The van’s owner happened along and moved it himself. I don’t think that he heard enough of my conversation with the jerk to realize that I was standing up for him and his property.
This past weekend I had occasion to be in the same Wally World as I’d learned that they had a huge clearance on fishing tackle. As I stood in one of the lines that seemed to wrap around the block only twice, I noticed a sign over the register that guaranteed that this line was “always open – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”. Then I noticed that there was a similar sign over the next counter that guaranteed that THAT counter was open all day during the weekend.
I started to ask the manager if he’d like me to remove the sign for him – then realized that they wouldn’t understand anyway…
That should be “inconSiderate” and “WERE elderly.” I need more coffee…
Patty
Here’s a solution:
If you hate the place, don’t shop there.
If you park in a parking lot you should understand the risk.
If you did a walk around check of your vehicle before you drove this wouldn’t happen. (My dad taught me this when I got my first car).
I understand how this pisses people off, I have parked my car a mile away from the mall to avoid this crap and have come back to find someone has gone out of their way to scratch my car. I feel your pain, really
What did the large woman of minority descent have to do with this?
you have to post the pic on the net, and extra points for decorating with toilet/crepe paper. Whoooo!!!
replies:
If you hate the place, don’t shop there. Not always a practical solution. One must shop somewhere.
If you park in a parking lot you should understand the risk. But one doesn’t have to accept needless damage. Particularly when one voluntarily walks significant distances to place vehicle far from the greatest dangers.
If you did a walk around check of your vehicle before you drove this wouldn’t happen. (My dad taught me this when I got my first car). A good idea. Probably practiced by very few people. (Dad’s have great advice about cars, don’t they?)
What did the large woman of minority descent have to do with this? Demonstrating contrast. First story was of said female, second story was of white male. No group is being singled out here.
My parking lot story involves neither WalMart nor damage, but the idiocy still amazes me. It was winter in Lafayette, Indiana, and the parking lot of the mall was completely snow-covered - packed solidly but lineless. I arrived very early and parked near a light pole - those things ALWAYS designate a parking lane. I returned a couple of hours later to find my little Datsun completely surrounded by other vehicles. I have no idea in what order the others parked, but the last of them should have noticed something just a bit amiss… fortunately, the guy in front of me came out a few minutes after I did, so I didn’t have to sit too long.
Guess they issue licenses to just everybody, eh?
I hate Walmart and have only gone there under extreme protest. It’s not hte parking lot, it’s the shallow end of the gene pool customers and clientele that don’t have a light on behind their eyes.
That and Sears, gives me the willies every time I go in there. I feel like I’ve just gone back to 1963.
What second story?
My favorite was this time when I was out to lunch in high school with the other seniors from the lacrosse team.
We’re gettin in the car to leave, and someone’s door almost bumps the truck next to us a little–didn’t even actually hit it. The guy who’s truck it is starts shouting, but we just back up and pull out. However, as we’re leaving, I start pretending to say something–a stupid move, I know, but it was just so funny the way he was shouting to people who obviously couldn’t hear him. Just waved and mouthed the classic theater line “peas and carrots”. Didn’t even actually say anything. Then he goes and hits the car, and challenges us to a fight.
Now, not being violent people, we didn’t take him up on it–just pointed out that he was trying to get into a fight with 5 guys in front of his 7 year-old kid. Some example you’re setting for your son there, huh? And what if we were short-tempered? There’s 5 of us–all in very good shape after a season of lacrosse; do you really want to get beaten up in front of your child? We just laughed and drove off…
Shit, did it again.
Quisling, I used to do somehting like that when I had a Bronco II, but I pushed the carts around with my front bumper, got going about 30-40 then slammed on my brakes and watched the carts zoom off into the side of the building that owned the carts. Needless to say they were much shorter. I only ran over one, it tipped over and went under my car, wasnt recognisable as a cart anymore.
Shirley Ujest, my best friend and I love to visit Wal-mart onthe first of the month, we walk around dressed up like the guys from deliverance, complete with “Billy Bob” teeth, we walk around tapping people on the sholders to tell them
I like guns, in out best redneck freak voices, then we bust up laughing and get kicked out. Its just too funny.
Hey, on the cart destruction thing.
Our WalMart is a super meglo mart that has a delivery lane in the back, going around the store, and a huge employee parking lot (that’s always empty) beside the store. There’s a concrete divider with pine trees in it between the truck lane and the parking lot.
We used to get in a car, with the passenger window down, and have the passenger hold a cart. We’d get going about 50, and then swerve in the opposite direction as the passenger let go of the cart.
The cart would speed towards the divider doing 50 or so, hit the curb, implode, and then flip up into the air.
We used to have contests to see how high in the trees we could get the carts stuck.
Most WalMarts are all set up the same way, I’m sure your friendly local WalMart has the same divider/parking lot/pine trees setup. Not that you’d ever need to use it…
–Tim
Cool image there- must look cool around Christmas.
We had just bought it, still had the temporary plates on. We went to see the US Women’s Soccer Team play at Arrowhead Stadium. We had to park where they told us, of course. When we were sitting in the car waiting for traffic to clear, the guy parked on my side of the car banged his door into mine so hard that it rocked the car. My husband had to get out and take down the license number to call the police before the guy would give us his insurance information. We were pretty sure the guy would have been afraid of having to take a breathalizer test. Since all he did was crack the window and toss out his old insurance card, we weren’t positive. Anyway, we had to have the trim replaced on the door. Thank goodness it didn’t get the paint on the metal.
Then a few months later my girls and I are at McDonalds and this landscaping trucks pulls up into the spot next to me. It was a very windy day, gusts of 45-55 miles an hour all day, even though it was nice and sunshiny otherwise. They had this lose piece of plastic (like wrapping material) that was tied to the truck somehow. Anyway, it was beating the hell out of my car when we came out. I finally caught it so that I could get my baby in her car seat. Then I was on the phone to my insurance when the men came out. They started making fun of me for being mad that my paint had scratches in it. They started going over on the other side of my car and asking if their plastic did those scratches which weren’t even scratches they were mud splatters from the drive into town. Weird, strange men. Assholes! I was able to get most of scratches not be as noticible by putting on a new coat of wax, but not all of them. His stupid insurance took forever to get back to me.
Before they got back to me, I was dropping something off at my neighbors house and her dog jumped up on my car and put scratches on my door. I said screw it, I give up. I wasn’t meant to have a nice car this time.
Then a few weeks later, I came out from Old Navy and there was shopping cart against my daughter’s door. There were some bad scratches, down to the metal, from it. The vehicle parked next to me was really nice, new mini-SUV thing. A bunch of teenagers came out of the store to get it. I knew they didn’t do it. I was just about to give up hope that there is such a thing as a decent human being in Kansas City when these boys got such a look of compassion on their faces. The driver even shook his head looking at my scratches (probably thinking, “That was so-o-o close to my SUV”).
My husband says that the scratches aren’t that bad, hardly noticible. I OTOH was raised that any flaw in the finish of a car is a tragedy. (My dad worked for Ford Motor Company.) Maybe it’s not that bad, but I feel like it’s a piece of crap now. I’ve had it one year this fall. I can’t wait to get rid of it.
I know how you feel SoMo. I just bought a 92 Camaro with absolutely no dings, dents, or scratches. It is inevitable that it will get a door ding or something in it because I live in Atlanta. I just know one day I will come out and see a tiny scratch in that beautiful purple paint, and I will just drop to the ground and cry for hours.
The Wally World, cookie cop mentality is usually just aggrevating but it can be much worse. Two years ago a Wal-Mart security guard and a 17 year old stock boy in Mesa (a satellite of Phoenix) got the brilliant idea to chase a guy who they suspected of trying to shoplift a TV set. After a ten mile chase they confronted the alleged shoplifter, had a confrontation and were both killed by gunshots to the back of their heads. Michael Gherman was convicted of first and second degree murder Monday and may face the death penalty. An ugly situation with no good guys.
Padeye, I hope they fry him.
I never expected this thread to go anywhere. It’s nice to know that there are other people in the world that try to take as good a care of their vehicle as do I.
This time of year I’m normally a maniac. I wash my vehicle every other day, wax regularly, windshield cleaned daily (I can’t stand to look through dirty glass)!
The only flaw in the current paint job came from my second week at my previous job. All the time and effort to protect it when I can and the one place it’s vulnerable…
sigh…