Do you walk behind or beside a shopping cart in the store?

dseag2 said:
What about people who block the aisle because their shopping cart is on one side and they are on the other side trying to figure out what to buy? I moved someone's shopping cart the other day. She said "I would have moved it for you" and I was thinking "Well, why didn't you?"
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How about the family reunions in Walmarts aisles?
My road rage is very apparent in grocery stores!
 
I am disturbed by people picking up items and smelling them, then putting them back. Especially, men with long beards who pass the items over to the family to smell. These people practically live at the store, so I'm told. They also stare at other shoppers. OT, I know haha. Still it makes people dragging carts around the wrong way seem minor.
 
The discussion ought not be rigid either way but rather one ought use common sense being considerate depending on specific highly variable simple situations. What one needs to be aware of is that there are other people around one also shopping, employees moving food and materials, in narrow isles, with general expectations of behavior. Much of our behaviors are more complex due to repeated experiences than one might imagine and become second nature.

For instance if one removes an item from a shelf say to read packaging text, it would be inconsiderate for the store's sake to not put such back where it came from as in a different product area, on the floor, or in someone else's nearby cart. We've already figured such things out that become automatic social habits without a need to say list such on signs or go to a training class for. How one moves carts around in stores is much the same. Those that do grate against the acceptable, for instance blocking others in crowded isles will quickly receive requests to move out of the way they are sure to avoid doing in the future.
 
Fyrefox said:
Then my supermarket chain employs a meandering robot called Marty who slowly rolls down the aisles looking for spills. He becomes immobile when he encounters one, blocking passage and intoning that a cleanup is needed. Someday, my feral instincts are going to be triggered, I’ll fling myself upon him, and take the robotic horror down!

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Yes, we also have "Marty". :rolleyes: He's a PITA. I'm not sure, but I think he's also a camera that watches shoppers. 👀
 
Stores shouldn't have displays that stick out in the aisles, either. The market I usually patronize has so many the aisles are like ski slaloms. I've never purchased anything from one of those anyway. Where I used to work, those would be an OSHA violation.
 
JaniceM said:
Or try with two carts.. push the one in front of you while pulling the one behind you.
I recall doing that occasionally while "mega-shopping" for the eldercare home. :)
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I shopped like that for at least five years when my three children were babies and preschoolers. Pushed a cart full of kids and dragged a cart of groceries. Necessity is the mother of invention. I tried to only shop weekday mornings.

Nowadays I push a cart, but am not above pulling it a few feet from the front if I happen to be in front of it. TBH, I don't put a lot of thought into where I am relative to my cart, but pulling it from the side seems awkward.

If grocery stores provided enough space for two carts to pass each other in the aisles rather than narrower aisle footprints or displays in the aisles themselves, people would be able to navigate more easily. Even so, shoppers are generally quite polite to each other and maneuver their carts out of the way when seeing other people coming.

When we hit semi-retirement my husband would often shop with me. This normally gentle man would commandeer the cart and sometimes be in parts unknown while my arms got filled with groceries. Kind of defeated the shopping cart thing.

He'd get riled about how others "drove" and parked. I finally explained that most women have a universally understood and respected rhythm to the shopping game. If someone's cart is in our way, we just say, "excuse me" or gently shift their cart out of our way if the shopper's focus is elsewhere. No biggie. Most grocery shopping is done at a relaxed amble, not a frenzied pace.

Other than Costco we don't usually grocery shop together anymore. Works better all the way around.
 
People being "inconvenienced" by others in a grocery store is pretty much the "norm"....always has been, and always will be. Blocking the narrow aisles with their carts, and browsing the items, etc., while paying little or no attention to those around them is pretty much to be expected. If anyone finds that very upsetting, they should probably get up real early and hit the stores before 9AM, or do their shopping well after Supper when the stores are nearly empty.

Personally, I find it kind of "amusing" to watch others going through their "routine"....almost a cheap form of "entertainment".
 
StarSong said:
Most grocery shopping is done at a relaxed amble, not a frenzied pace.
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I guess I missed the boat on that one. I like to be in-and-out. Countless times I've seen people grab a shopping cart then stand just inside the door in a catatonic trance. My mom would make a list of items as she thought of them, then have to run back and forth in the store as she worked her way down the list. I try to organize my list by aisle. I hate shopping for anything, but groceries is the lesser evil. When grocery shopping, to make it not seem so frustrating I have the mantra "At least I'm not shopping for a bikini."

And don't get me going on the people that get in the checkout line then keep running back into the store to get something they suddenly remembered they needed, or the folks that get in the "20 Items or Less" lane with a shopping cart that looks like the Grinch's sleigh.

Grinch sleigh.jpg
 
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debodun said:
I am seeing a trend across all age people, but especially young people, of walking beside their carts. That takes up double space makes it more difficult trying to get past them in a narrow aisle
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I don't shop grocery stores much.
But
When I do, I use the tiny cart
With it, I can slip thru clogged aisles with ease
and no need to leave it or stand beside it..it's tiny

I don't think stores like them much
It limits yer purchase

Made a poster on it years ago
tough.jpg
 
I just remembered; I wrote something about shopping when we lived at our cabin in the mountains;

I rather enjoy it
Have my favorite stores, target brands
...and carts

This little guy has revolutionized shopping for me;
Ywu6b7I.jpg


It’s rather zippy
I call it the Mini Cooper of the aisles
With it, I can zip thru the lanes, passing ol’ ladies and mothers with children like they were standing still (because they were).
Sadly, they just aren’t plentiful enough.
So, before I even enter the store, I’ll scan the parking lot horizon, and have been known to trek to the opposite side of the store or lot to snag one.

Another sad note, not all stores have them.
One of those stores is Cash&Carry, a left coast poor man’s Costco. They, like Costco, have what I call the dray, that big a$$ cart with the directional wheels on the wrong end.
No matter, all I get there is their 20 roll thousand sheets per roll TP (best buy in the west, btw).


See, thing is, my lady’s knees give out half way thru our weekly big city, hard pavement tour, of which is 50 mi from the cabin.
So she saves herself for yarn and fabric stores, while I, under her protest, ‘got this’.
Everything I do in repetition has a system.
Grocery shopping is no exception.
I know which stores have the best buys and where the stuff is.
I don’t ‘shop’ per se
I get, go
I begin to pester her on what we are low on two days before the trip.
I have lists of lists
One for tools, building materials
One for groceries, dry goods
One for wants (not needs)
We never forget anything
Not on my watch
 
I don't care how much space they take up. My beef is when they won't let you pass or they cut you off when you're walking with your basket.
 
Judycat said:
I am disturbed by people picking up items and smelling them, then putting them back. Especially, men with long beards who pass the items over to the family to smell. These people practically live at the store, so I'm told. They also stare at other shoppers. OT, I know haha. Still it makes people dragging carts around the wrong way seem minor.
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Just be lucky they aren't tasting items & putting them back. :)
 

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