To the editor: People not returning their shopping carts has long been a cause of concern for me. You borrowed it, so give it back. And, if you don't feel safe where you shop (a justification used by psychologist Leslie Dobson, whose TikTik video sparked this discussion), then shop elsewhere.
The most egregious crime is leaving strollers in handicapped parking areas. These are the areas designed to be passage areas for people with disability signs.
In some places, stores charge 25 cents to deliver a cart, money that is returned to the buyer when they return it. Losing your currency helps pay the person who must pick up unreturned carts. This is a great system that I wish all stores would adopt.
Until then, just take responsibility and pay back what you borrowed.
Robert Bachmann, Los Angeles
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To the editor: This entire piece ignores the obvious: civility.
Instead of choosing belligerence and an insult (“you can judge me all you want” and “fuck”), Dobson could have chosen to say something like this:
“As a single mother forced to shop with my two young children, I don't feel safe returning carts in parking lots while my children are in the car. I also fear for my own safety. Statistics show that more than 200 children a year are kidnapped from parking lots. Comment if you feel the same.”
Do we choose to be confrontational simply to get attention on social media? Or have we evolved to be truly, simply and purely rude?
Julie Atherton, Tustin
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To the editor: I admit that I have been a “drug dealer” in the past. Mothers with small children and elderly people were not my target. Here is an example:
I saw a healthy man in his 40s spend a considerable amount of time wrestling his shopping cart over the edge of a flower pot in the parking lot instead of returning it. As he got into his car, I stopped and said sweetly, “Excuse me.” He looked at me expectantly with a big smile.
I continued, “I can't help but notice that you're wearing a Yale sweatshirt, bought a case of expensive wine, and drive a new BMW, but you don't have the intelligence to put your cart in the damn corral. ”
As I drove away, I looked at him in the rearview mirror. She stood there, scratched her head, and took the cart to the store.
Laura Alcorn, Poway
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To the editor: The best reason to return shopping carts is to make sure they are stored properly and are not left to wander or block parking spaces. After all, they have wheels.
I learned to store my stroller thanks to an incident a few years ago. I found a space in a crowded lot at the grocery store and walked in even when I saw a cart near the front of that space. I tried to push it away a little with my car.
Unfortunately, a push freed him to roll into a car in front of me. The driver of that car returned at that moment and yelled at me for hitting her vehicle, rightly so, although I don't know if her car had been scratched or not.
Although the mistake was mine, the problem had been unnecessarily created by whoever abandoned the errant bandwagon.
Mona Baumgartel, Encinitas
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To the editor: On June 14, where you leave a shopping cart was front-page news in the print edition of the Times, not immigration, climate change or homelessness.
It's good to know that we officially have no problems anymore.
Joel Miller, Torrance
