Do you return your shopping carts?
It’s a sight that makes a lot us cringe: a shopping cart drifting around the grocery store parking lot, threatening to dent cars as unsuspecting shoppers test tomatoes and struggle through self-checkout.
Even though many people hate it, some are out there leaving carts around. Who are they and why are they doing it? Well, we know one is a California psychologist who was recently roasted on social media for admitting it.
However, forensic psychologist, author and speaker Dr. Leslie Dobson did make a compelling case: “I’m not getting my groceries into the car, getting my children into the car, and then leaving them in the car to go return the cart. So if you’re going to give me a dirty look, f**k off,” she said in an Instagram video posted last week.
Out of the nearly 20,000 comments on the post as of Wednesday, many were negative.
“Hi! I was paralyzed and have three young kids and never …. Not once have I left a cart where it doesn’t belong … literally. If I can do it in a wheelchair … disabled, I assure you, you can too! Bonus: a great lesson for your kids, as THEY ARE WALKING WITH YOU TO RETURN YOUR CART to not be lazy and leave things how you found it,” said a user named Geneva Brier.
“Girlypop it takes less than 30 seconds to drop your cart off. Your kids will be absolutely fine in a locked car for a literal 30 seconds, and you [are] less than 100ft away. Be FR,” said Pamela Carol Caravalho.
Others called her a “Karen” or speculated that she was simply being controversial for engagement. However, some people were more understanding.
“If I see a mama loading groceries and belting up the kids, I take the cart for her,” said a user named Marla Smith. Another user named Susan O agreed.
“I support you,” she said. “And when I see a mom unloading groceries with small children, I stand at a distance and I ask them would you like me to return your cart for you? Every single time the mom seems super relieved.”
There was so much discussion on the post that Dobson added a follow up video.
“I want to give you some statistics,” she said. “Last year, 265 children were abducted in parking lots in America. Half of those were sexually assaulted. As a single mom, returning your shopping cart, you are prime for a predator to watch and grab you. In many states, it’s actually illegal to turn your car on and walk away.”
She said that parents should trust their gut regarding the safety of parking lots. Dobson also said that some lawyers specialize in parking lot crime cases and that she has even been part of some of those cases.
This isn’t the first time that the shopping cart return debate has lit up social media. In 2021, The New York Times reported on the “so-called Shopping Cart Theory has become an article of faith on Reddit and other social media sites.” That theory postulates that cart return is a way to measure if people can self-govern.
Anthropologist Krystal D’Costa wrote a detailed breakdown of what’s going on with shopping cart returns for Scientific American in 2017.
“In the instances where there is no rental system, people may leave their carts stranded for some of the following reasons: the receptacle is too far from where they’ve parked their car, they have a child whom they do not want to leave unattended, the weather is bad, they have a disability that [is] prohibitive to easy movement, the perception that it’s someone else’s job to collect the carts or they’re leaving the carts for someone else to easily pick up and use,” she explained.
D’Costa also organized people into different groups based on their shopping cart return habits. These include people who always return carts, people who return carts when it is convenient, people who return carts when they feel social pressure to do so, people with children who enjoy riding in the cart to the return receptacle and people who never return carts.
“Supermarkets can try and guide our behavior with receptacles or cart attendants, but they’re competing with our own self-serving goals, which in this case may be staying dry, keeping an eye on our children, or simply getting home as quickly as possible, and we’re being guided by the ways others behave on top of that,” D’Costa said.