Shopping Carts

Today I witnessed a peculiar thing about human nature.  Sitting in the middle of a West Babylon parking lot there sat a black shopping cart.  It was situated in such a place that cars would have to swerve around it to avoid it.  It was inconveniently placed near the end of the aisle, so the hazard was doubled by people who might turn without looking. 

For some reason, the inconvenience of swerving, the hazard of getting into an accident, and the high probability of a rogue cart slamming into a car was not enough reason for some good neighbor to park their car and move the cart to a safer location.  Not even the people walking to/from the grocery store really seemed to care.  Admittedly, I was also a bit into my own errands to move the cart on my first pass.

However, upon passing the cart a second time and thinking to myself, "Gee, someone should move that cart," I realized that no one was going to move the cart until I did.  So I parked my car nearby, walked into the aisle, looked at the store on the cart, and walked it over to the store. And that was that.  Two minutes "wasted" but I felt that I did something better for the denizens of that particular shopping center for the day. 

I think one way we can help the community (in a small way) is to think of others who use our shared spaces, such as parking lots.  As I listed above, a rogue cart can cause a car accident or damage to a vehicle itself.  When we use shopping carts, why can't we put them away?  Why leave them in the parking lot where they create inconvenience and danger? If you notice a cart has not been put away, why don't you take a minute of your time to put it away yourself?  I know going forward, I'm going to be much more vigilant.  I hope that we can all think of others in our community and try to help out in this small way.  It's not curing cancer or solving world hunger, but the little things do add up.