It's a busy day at the department store. You're in the parking lot scoping out a spot. Ah! There's one. That's perfect. You go to pull in and (screech) come to a sudden but decisive halt because there is a cart parked in the middle of the slot.
What's up with that. Just five steps away is the area designated for parking the carts, but some bozo was just too lazy and inconsiderate to take the time to park the cart.
It isn't just the lack of respect for fellow shoppers that gets the blood boiling, it is the potential for property damage. What happens, if after choosing the plum parking spot, you collide with the cart instead of stopping in time. The cart may not do any harm to your bumper, but could easily crash into the side of another vehicle.
And don't forget for a second that this is Saskatchewan. The wind blows here, often in a gusty and lusty fashion. Lightweight shopping carts are child's play to a brisk prairie wind, that delights in pushing them willy nilly around the parking lot, crashing into as many vehicles as possible along the way.
It's not my responsibility, you say? The business pays someone to collect the carts from the parking lot. Yes, but their job is to pick them up from the corral and bring the carts back to the front of the store for other customers. Not to hike around the parking lot to find carts people have ditched in the grass or left in the farthest corner away from the front doors. It's common courtesy to at least park your cart in the corral. That's what they're there for.
Shopping cart laziness is cured at some shopping venues by requiring that a loonie be inserted into a mechanism in order to use the cart. Excellent idea, as long as the mechanism works and you actually have a loonie at hand. It's just a method for mandating common courtesy.
Which brings us to the true theme of what probably seems like a petty rant. What ever happened to common courtesy? It seems the world has become a place where it's every man for himself. Never mind what the other guy might need or want, never mind thinking how your actions might affect others. Just bulldoze ahead and to heck with the consequences.
That attitude isn't just evident in the parking lot. It can be experienced on the streets, as Battlefords commuters make the mad dash from Battleford to North Battleford, or in the reverse direction, in a wild effort to shave a couple seconds off the 10-minute (tops) commute.
It's evident in the mountains of trash dumped along our highways and byways by those who are so self-centred they don't consider how the sight of all that garbage will affect those who drive by it.
Weeks, months and even years are now designated for one cause or another. I think it's time for a Be Considerate to Your Fellow Earthlings Week.
