I figure abandoned carts could be shoplifters who finally pocket their theft and no longer need the cart for cover, or perhaps people who realize they left their wallet at home and just leave… or maybe space aliens abduct the shopper. It is hard to tell. But the occurrence is so frequent that it barely raises an eyebrow to the grocery worker who has to put it all back…again.
But I can never understand the mentality of the person who decides they do not want that expensive steak or hot rotisserie chicken, and therefore they decide to just leave it on top of a shelf of cereal boxes. Of course, discovered by staff an hour or two later the perishable ends up in the trash. WTF?
I’ve noticed that aisle hogs startle if their hog cart is bumped by my otherwise polite cart. Just a little tap, Oh I’m sorry. It is strangely gratifying. It’s like a minor traffic accident with no legal ramifications.
Same here. Maybe I just shop at all the right times or something, but the aisles at the stores I go fit two carts abreast and people actually do move out of your way if they see you coming or say “excuse me.” And I don’t exactly live in the friendliest city in the world (Chicago.)
What pisses me off at groceries is how they keep moving the shit around so I have to traipse through the entire store to find an item that once was in aisle 3 but now is in aisle 8.
I was recently in a store that had a sign banning this behavior, and requiring people to use carts or handbaskets.
My advice is not to leave your cart anywhere it is not in your direct control. It will annoy everyone who is trying to get by, and they will not be able to politely ask you to move it, since they won’t know to whom the cart belongs. This may lead to them shoving it out of the way or removing items from it.
In many stores where I shop, the main aisle in front is where everyone lines up for the registers. Leaving your cart there will create there will create ugly traffic jams.
At least twice a month we have to call out over the speakers to try and help a customer find his/her cart that another person has mistakenly taken. Two half-full carts within proximity of each other can look very much alike. So make sure when you return to your cart with items from the aisle that you are putting them in the correct buggy please.
The “lets take the whole family shopping” experience - worse when two little kids have “shopper in training” carts. Not bad on a weekday afternoon, but by God, don’t bring your kids to the grocery store on Saturday.
People who haven’t seen each other since their kids were in 2nd grade stopping in front of the cereal aisle to catch up on eight years that have passed. Despite neither of them ever cared about the other enough to call in almost a decade, its important that we spend fifteen minutes catching up in front of the Frosted Flakes. If its important enough, trade phone numbers and meet for coffee.
“Senior shopping day” - when the Senior Housing drops off a bus load of octogenarians. It warms my heart to see Seniors independent and still going - but they don’t go quickly. I’ve identified that schedule and avoid that store if I’m in a hurry. (If I’m not in a hurry it is delightful to watch two people in love in their eighties shopping together)
“I’m not sure how to use self checkout - but I’m going to use it - with a cart of 72 items, while talking on my cell phone” Self checkout is there to be quick. You can assume everyone in the self checkout line behind you is there to be quick. It isn’t made for full grocery carts while talking to your mother in law,
It means that the user of the cart was going to check out with a particular cashier - who was their accomplice and would not ring up the full amount - but noticed that that member of staff was not on cashier duty.
The stores around here have narrow aisles, and there isn’t anywhere to leave your cart, even briefly, in the somewhat wider main aisles without blocking access to the items on the end displays.
I agree heartily with Amateur Barbarian that the most annoying part is the number of standing promotional displays that get packed in the aisles.
I do this. I buy very little from the middle of the grocery store. I park my cart at the endcap 2 aisles down, then walk down and then up the next aisle and deposit what I need into the cart. If I’m buying drinks or toilet paper or whatever, then I’ll push the cart down the aisle but usually, I’m just buying condiments or some such which is easy enough to carry by hand.
Between aisles zig-zagged with standup displays, ‘special snowflake’ shoppers - usually soccer-mom types who then block three parking spaces getting their kid and two bags of groceries into the Escalade - and Senior Discount Tuesday, I ran into another practice of my local store that drives me fraggin’ bonkers… may not be all that rare.
Not sure why grocery stores seem to hire more than their share of “special needs” employees. I commend the intentions, but we have at least three or four checkers I won’t go to if they’re the last ones open - one is either high-functioning autistic or severely OCD, and continually talks himself through the processes, and has a visible controlled reaction if anything happens out of sequence (for him). Many of the rest seem to be severe substance abuse types in recovery, and they’ve lost some brain cells.
But nothing… nothing makes me boil like PUTTING YOUR VERY SLOWEST CHECKER ON THE EXPRESS LINE! We had four items, there were three people ahead of us, and this woman managed to take absolutely forever fussing over every detail of every item, every payment, every bagging. Three full carts went through the next line in the time it took her to ring through three people with five items each.
Unfortunately, this isn’t uncommon - the two or three obsessive, dead-slow checkers are often on the quick-check line. I didn’t recognize this one until too late, and it is pre-Xmas shopping, meaning too busy to wait behind four or five full carts elsewhere. Grrr.
This happened to me at Costco. I left my cart near the checkout area and ran to the back to get eggs or something and when I came back the staff had already grabbed it.
My thanks to many of you for voicing my peeves about the grocery store. The slow checker on the express lane, the family reunions on the ice cream aisle. I do a combination of driving the cart down the aisles and parking and getting one or two items. I love grocery shopping–when there is no one else in the store. Since that rarely happens, I don’t love it so much.
If I could get everything I need at Aldi, I wouldn’t shop anywhere else. It does get crowded sometimes but their checkers are so fast (since they don’t have to weigh anything), the line goes quickly.
I have been noticing more and more how many people are oblivious to those around them and to the effects of their actions on others, particularly in stores, in traffic, at work.
I will park at the end of there are so many carts in the aisle another would be a nuisance. Nobody else does it, usually they don’t have to. Never seen anyone pull a cart. Is it a kids thing?
I sit in the bar across the street while the wife goes in to deal with the zoo animals. I only ever go in for a quick ninja mission to get one or two items with surgical precision (usually beer/booze).
Two people are shopping together. They wait until they get to the checkout line to go over every single individual item to make sure they want it. A two minute discussion on the 99 cent bag of disposal silverware.
This happened to me twice today.
One day a woman who was buying 116 drinking glasses had to come into my checkout line, take out every fucking glass and run her hand around the rim for about 20 seconds. I had every store employee looking at me. The head cashier came over and asked me what was going on. I told her, and she asked the customer what that was all about. “I have a very sensitive mouth. I can’t any rough spots” was the customer’s explanation.