WalMart Carts
We live within walking distance of a WalMart and a junior high school. It's a bad combination. Kids walking home from school often grab a WalMart cart to push their friends home in. Sometimes they have cart races down a long hill. Do the kids return the cart to the store? Nope. They park the cart in front of someone's house. When the elementary school kids come home, they push the cart around some more, and said cart ends up on its side in someone's lawn. Don't try to tell me that doesn't look trashy. I have never seen a WalMart cart used as a lawn ornament in Better Homes and Gardens magazine.
When this first started happening, I put the WalMart customer service number on speed dial. When I saw a cart, I'd call the number. But I noticed that the carts stayed there. No one came to pick them up. Other neighbors called the police when they saw kids pushing WalMart carts into the neighborhood. The police were willing to help with the problem. After all, the carts are worth at least $250 each. But WalMart is too friendly to press charges for stealing carts. They're also too friendly to put up a sign that says, "Please don't take shopping carts out of the parking lot and leave them in your neighbor's lawn." Alas, they aren't friendly enough to come get their carts.
So what do you think we should do with all the carts? Cart Henge? Cart Triathalon? Any other ideas?
Funny! Sounds like a good YM/YW service project, after the cart relay races of course. Maybe they could race them back to Walmart.
ReplyDeleteThat's hilarious! Luckily we live close enough that my boys always want to take the carts back - they are always looking for an excuse to go to Walmart, especially when they have birthday money to spend. But I haven't seen too many carts on our street lately.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of Cart Stonehenge! I can just see our ancestors out in the middle of a parking lot, wondering just how those carts got into those formations. If they only knew that we threw them up there in our anger about all the dents in our cars!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the creative solutions, everyone! PuttPutt, you are so funny.
ReplyDeleteHere's what my aunt said--I thought it was insightful--"Where the heck are the parents of the cart stealers? I'd have been in deep trouble, as would you and I'm sure your kids. On the way to get bloodwork done this morning, Frank and I were commenting about the lack of respect and concern folks have for others and their property. Oh my, I must be getting old."
If I caught my kids bringing carts home from WalMart, I'd make sure they had a consequence too. Maybe the problem is that parents don't know what their kids are doing.
Most of the supermarkets here have coin slot trolleys - you need a £1 coin to detach the chain from the trolley that is attached to the one in front and so on. If Walmart did that, some enterprising kid would collect them all up and return them for the deposit :-)
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