What would it take to get people to either bring their shopping carts back into the store or to place them in the corrals provided in the parking lot?

It is absolutely maddening to be walking through the parking lot and see someone simply push their cart aside, leaving it for someone else to deal with.

Don’t these sluggards realize others are not their personal slaves?

Don’t they care that leaving a cart abandoned and loose in the parking lot makes it more difficult for the store’s staff who have to go around collecting these errant vessels in order to get them back to the store for someone else to use?

Apparently not.

Recently, a gentleman (a term applied probably not appropriately) was seen immediately after unloading a cart into a van parked in a handicap space simply leaving the cart sitting in the space adjacent to the parking stall, space which is lined and left vacant for a handicapped person to exit their vehicle easily.

Of course, too many people take unfair advantage of handicap parking, but that is fodder for another conversation.

The abuse of leaving carts around in various spaces becomes even worse in the winter when some people don’t want to be out in the cold too long, at least long enough to walk a few extra paces to correctly place their cart.

When parking lots have to be plowed of snow, and the snow gets piled up in large heaps in numerous locations throughout the lot, it leaves fewer spaces for parking, but those heaps are almost always placed at the most remote points in the parking lot so more spaces are available closer to the store.

On these occasions, the loose shopping cart problem becomes more acute, most likely because people just don’t want to be out in the snow or the cold any longer than absolutely necessary.

How aggravating it is to drive into a parking lot, spot what seems to be an appropriate parking space, begin to pull into it and then discover there is a shopping cart right in the middle of it.

These “shopping cart scofflaws” need to be stopped!

They are a menace to a well-ordered society!

If they are allowed to flourish unfettered, their disease will spread and eventually infect all the rest of humanity!

Okay, that is a bit hyperbolic.

But these folks are, by their negligence and disregard, making life more difficult for many others.

It is really a shame our modern technology has not reached the point at which it can outfit shopping carts with homing devices… sort of like Roomba, which does its vacuuming and then returns to its charging station.

Maybe it is a “carrot or stick” situation, one in which the shopping cart user is either rewarded or penalized for how he or she treats the shopping cart, although rewarding someone for simply doing the right and proper thing seems to be excessive.

Everyone should pity the poor guy (or gal) at the store whose daily task is to gather the shopping carts in the parking lot and return them to the store for re-use. If he or she is forced to wander all over the lot picking up stray carts, their job is that much harder, more difficult than it should be.

A little consideration goes a long way.

Chuck Witt is a retired architect and a lifelong resident of Winchester. He can be reached at chuck740@bellsouth.net.