Catadromy

I have come to the conclusion that some people have been raised by wolves.  They look the same as the rest of us—no fur, fangs, claws, yellow eyes—and they walk among us.  But…and this is important…they have no manners!

Yes, I’m referring to the Bane of the Rogue Shopping Cart.  You’ve all seen them, sitting there in the market parking lot, rolled up against the planter or taking up a valuable space; in Costco’s lot, propped up with the front wheels in the trees or just left in a parking space; or just rolling around helter skelter in any old parking lot, looking for a car (like mine) to roll into and dent.

Seriously.  How hard is it to roll the cart back to the car corral at the end of the row and put the cart there?  I was in the Costco lot not long ago and I was wheeling my cart to my car and I passed this guy off-loading into his car.  He was parked right next to the cart corral.  I mean, Right. Next. To. It.  Me, being me, I stopped by this car with my own cartful and asked if he was planning on placing his cart in the conveniently-located cart corral.  He said he would.  I thanked him and told him that stray carts were a huge pet peeve of mine.  He nodded in agreement.  As it turns out, what he was agreeing with was that I was a pain in the ass, because he left his cart in his parking space.

Another time, I was at the Post Office (side note, I love the Postal Service—so much better than FedEx, which suffers from a seeming inability to find my house.  I had to give the driver instructions from Google Maps to in order to have a package delivered.  The dispatcher even asked me if my house had moved.  I mean, I live in California, so the house does move from time to time, but it’s basically been in the same general location since 1953.) which shares a parking lot with a number of other stores, one of which is a Smart & Final, with shopping carts.  This parking lot is not in the best shape and is full of depressions and uneven spots.  I pulled in, nose to nose with another car whose driver was loading up the back with lots of stuff from a cart.  She pulled the cart around to the front of her car and put some stuff in the passenger area.  I got out of my car and asked her if she would please put her cart in the cart corral, which was directly behind her.  She said “Sure.’’  And got in her car and drove off, leaving her cart to roll into the front of my car.  So, I had to take her cart and put it in the cart corral so that it wouldn’t do any further damage to my car.

And I wasn’t even going into Smart & Final.  I was going to the Post Office.  Where they don’t use shopping carts.

Do I look like the shopping cart police?

Do I look like yo’ mama?

I’m tired of picking up after you.

Don’t make me come over there.