The cart corral at the grocery store reveals a lot about us as a society. A lot about how each of us accepts or rejects our personal responsibility as part of our overall society.
“Do you need help taking your groceries to your car?” Generally I will decline the offer of assistance. Unless it’s a lovely day and I think the clerk would like a break.
So I get to my car, load my grocery bags into the trunk, and head to the cart corral to return my cart.
The cart corral. The breakdown of society.
More often than not, I get to the cart corral and grocery carts are in a state of disarray. Different sizes smashed together. No organization. No personal responsibility taken to ensure an orderly return of the carts made available to us to make our shopping experience easier.
Why is this? Why is it that we abandon all sense of order and personal responsibility to our collective order at the cart corral?
We don’t all jam together inside the store. We don’t randomly bump into each other in line. Well, most of us don’t.
Is it because of the relative anonymity? No one is watching when you return the cart? Who will know when you just roll it into the cart corral willy nilly?
You will. That’s who. And that should matter.
Personal responsibility. It has to start somewhere. Let it be in the cart corral.
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