A couple of years ago, three smaller branches of the same grocery store in my neighborhood vicinity closed down to make room for one giant version of the same store. It's large, it's modern, it offers a lot of fun additions (self checkout options and the deli olive bar being two of my personal favorites). It's not that far from the store I used to frequent so it's not even much extra effort to get there. They introduced an "in between" size shopping cart that holds more than a handbasket but isn't going to ram into anyone like those mammoth Cadillacs so often do (and usually on at least one wonky wheel).
However, the one thing they didn't seem to plan very well was the positioning of the Return Cart Here corrals. They offer two or three fairly large ones in the center parking aisle area, but for everyone who has to park anywhere other than those 2-3 main aisles, it means a hike back to return the shopping cart. In bad weather, or for moms with kids and a now full car of groceries, or let's face it, for anyone just not feeling motivated to return something when they've gotten what they needed and can now get out of there, this results in shopping carts positioned willy-nilly across the lot.
Most of the time people at least try to park them somewhat out of the way: in planter boxes, along the inside lines of the parking spaces (which can make parking a bit dangerous and obstacle-course-worthy when the carts start lining up) but it's still an inconvenience to have to navigate around them.
This evening, parked on one of the outskirt aisles and having unloaded the groceries into my car, with a cold wind picking up and rain clouds gathering, I must admit I was tempted. Really tempted. And then I took a look around me at the cars parked crooked around the stray shopping carts, at the carts that had rolled off into some distant corner, spurred on by open space and a building wind to make a run for it. And I looked at the clock which told me it was just 5 pm and the evening busy rush was only getting started. I sighed, locked the car, and started trundling my hybrid-sized cart back to the front of the store. Then, for good Karma measure, I picked up one more along the way.
Sure, it was only two carts out of the couple dozen scattered around the area but I felt mighty for my small achievement. That was two someone else didn't have to fetch in the coming darkness. And as I struggled with sometimes keeping just my two in line and on course, I found a new respect for the shopping cart wrestlers who wrangle 5 or 10 or more at a time, getting them back into line, over and over, all day long.
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