The Shopping Cart Indicator

For most people, there are very few major events in life that can determine whether someone has good character…or bad character. Instead, there are usually a multitude of repeated tiny trivial things that shape us and define us. Thereby deciding on our behalf, what kind of character we have.

One of the simplest, but surefire indicators of showing what kind of character someone has can be proven in a split-second decision they make in a parking lot. It is not able to be well hidden by the individual and therefore can be easily observed by members of the general public, at will. What is this proven indicator? It is the simple task of returning a grocery shopping cart when you are done with it.

Returning a shopping cart has several options. (Hint: These are all going to land someone squarely in the “person with good character” column. And bonus points: These are in ascending order of how to rack up the greatest amount of good karma!!)

1. Someone can return the cart to one of the many designated “cart corrals” located strategically across the parking lot.
2. They can walk the cart to the front sidewalk of the store and leave it outside the front doors.
3. They can go for the gold and walk the cart all the way inside the store and place it in the designated cart area inside where the carts belong.
4. It is pouring rain and the person parked at the far end of the parking lot (furthest from the store). Instead of just placing the cart in the nearest cart corral which would mean the cart is the only single cart in the cart corral, they instead — at bare minimum — put it in the cart corral that has a bunch of carts already in it. This means the poor store employee will not have to schlep out to just get that one lonely shopping cart in the cart corral in the monsoon.

Or, the person can go for the alternative, which will dump them in the “person with bad character” column which is to just let their cart linger aimlessly in the parking lot. <sigh> They should not try and make themselves feel better by saddling it up against a light post, hoisting the front wheels up on the curb, or did they seriously think that turning the whole cart upside down was helping the situation? (Hint: Hard no.)

Short of a serious emergency, a person’s laziness of taking a few steps to roll their cart to a conveniently located cart corral in the parking lot is utterly failing to meet an exceptionally low bar. How long does that action really take…how much effort do they have to exert to do it? It begs the query: What makes someone so special, or their time worth so more valuable, that they cannot be bothered to do this simple task? Is there an entitlement factor in play? Or, has The Shopping Cart Indicator shown once again that they are just a person who does not have good character?

Bottom line: Everything in life comes down to choices. It is simple. Be a person of good character. Spread good karma by always doing the right thing. Always take a moment to return your shopping cart where it belongs.

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