West Michigan PSA: Please Stop Doing This When You Go Grocery Shopping

I went out to lunch this weekend with my wife Lindsey, my new morning show co-host Laura Hardy and her boyfriend James.

On our way home, we had to stop at Meijer on 28th Street to pick up a prescription that was just filled. Being a Saturday, a lot of people were out grocery shopping.

I drove up and down several rows to finally find a parking spot. Just my luck, it was completely on the opposite side of the store entrance. Hey, a few extra steps never hurt anyone, so I parked and we started walking towards the entrance.

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After walking past a few cars I noticed an empty shopping cart blocking a parking spot.

I thought to myself, "How lazy do you have to be to not return a shopping cart?"

As we got closer to the store I noticed a ton of empty shopping carts around a car.

Let's zoom in to truly appreciate how many empty carts were left by lazy people.

I counted four which makes me wonder, "How exactly did this happen?" Did one big family park their giant family van here and they ended up filling up four shopping carts?

Or were these carts left behind by four people that were either too busy or too lazy to return the shopping cart to a cart corral?

A few seconds after I took these pictures a gentleman nearby got out of his car and started walking over towards the shopping carts. To my surprise, he collected three of the four and started returning them to a nearby cart corral.

After putting the carts in their place the gentleman headed towards the store.

As we continued towards the entrance, this is what I saw at the next cart corral. This is almost as bad as not returning your shopping cart at all. Sure you took some effort to go from where your car was parked to the cart corral, and it would appear you had great intentions of doing the right thing, but something happened as you were about to cross the finish line and you left your cart near the cart corral but not in it.

As you can see by the picture above, I was so close to the entrance and thought surely this laziness would come to an end, but a few cars past the cart corral I saw this.

How can you not return a mini cart? I'm not positive but it's gotta weigh less than a regular cart. Plus, you probably had fewer groceries, so what's your excuse for not returning it to the cart corral 10 feet away?

When I made it to the entrance I looked to my left and guess what I saw? If you guessed another shopping cart, you're correct. I tried to figure this one out in my head. Did someone have a car pull up for them, and then after they loaded up their groceries, just say, "Wow that's a long walk, I'll have to leave this sitting here?"

After we ran in and picked up the prescription, I noticed these shopping carts near the handicapped parking. I can almost understand a shopping cart being left there, but then I think of my 80-year-old grandma who can still muster up the energy to return her cart back where it belongs, so I once again find myself thinking, "How can someone be so lazy?" I also have to think if you need to use a handicap spot or you know someone that does, you would also know the importance of those spots not being blocked or the yellow area around them, where people in wheelchairs often exit and enter the vehicle.

I had to laugh when I looked to my right and saw the classic cart on the curb move. This person knows that they shouldn't block the parking spot, but they're still too lazy to return it so they put it on the grassy hill area.

My simple West Michigan PSA is when you go grocery shopping or any place that you need a cart, please don't be a lazy, selfish CART-HOLE, and return the cart inside the store,

or at one of many cart corrals located outside.

Thank you for listening to my West Michigan PSA.