If you don't return your trolley at the supermarket, why is that?

[ChinBristles]

A woman today, in a P&C space with no child (but that's a different argument) just let her trolley blow away after she'd put her shopping in the boot. I retrieved it and put it behind her car so she couldn't get out. She was raging!

Why do people not return their trolleys?

I usually put mine in the trolley park, but I have on occasion just put it on the pathway next to the car park. I’ve never really thought about it or lost much sleep over it. I can’t actually believe someone took the time to create a post about it.

I guess I didn't know it was A Thing. Same as if I pick up pasta and then walk a few aisles away and find a cheaper bag I'd prefer, I don't return to the initial shelf to return my initial item.

That's what I thought too.

Nothing worse than a lazy bugger who refuses to admit they're a lazy bugger.

And yet the post has 200 responses!

It seems to have struck a nerve because as a pp said, its a litmus test as to whether someone is a twat or not. (Barring disability). But i think your post answers my original question - you just dont think about others.

PuppyMonkey · Today 22:17
I'm also intrigued about how the PP with the twins and the toddler and etc etc who can’t be left for a second unsupervised coped with actually going to get a trolley in the first place. Confused
@PuppyMonkey maybe they took a trolley that was left close by in the car park that someone else didn’t put back?

Maybe she just got her period? Maybe she had a call to say she needed to urgently collect her child from school? Maybe she has a parent who's dying and it just slipped her mind to return it? Maybe she just farted she shit herself!!! There's so many reasons!!!!!

Um, I think your reaction might be slightly OTT if you are suggesting mass shootings are justified because someone has not put their trolley away.

I'm one of the people who sometimes leaves my trolley and like a PP it is because of disability. I'm not visibly disabled but after walking round the supermarket and having the trolley to hold on to I'm exhausted and in pain and the walk back from the trolley storage bit without something to steady me makes me feel unsafe.

@coocoodawoodashooda you have very bad supermarket etiquette! But a bag of pasta on the wrong shelf isnt going to roll off and bash a toddler in the head, is it? Or get in the way of a wheelchair user?

@ChinBristles "Is home delivery not an option for you?" Of course it's an option, and one of which I normally avail myself. I have only been into the supermarket three times in the last two years – mainly to get me over my Covid anti-supermarket feel. I was initially merely pointing out that some people's situation differs.

"Can you make sure they are safely stowed so not getting in the way of a wheelchair user/car/child?" Thanks for being patronising and pointing out the bleeding obvious.

If they put a 'bargain' at the end of one aisle and then in the official aisle the same product is cheaper in a different packet then I don't think I am being the ass hole.

If someone elses trolley bashed into my car then id likely be annoyed, but its never happened.

Some of the stories on here now about other potential character flaws of people who do not always take their trolleys back to the proper trolley park, are verging on ridiculous. Comments about how they would be the first to complain if a trolley rolled into a car, and how they must let their children throw rubbish. It all seems very dramatic.
If youre genuinely interested in the thought process, i think my first choice would be to park close to a trolleypark.
The times i leave my trolley, i wouldnt just leave it flying around the carpark in the wind, bashing it into peoples cars. In the past i may have left the trolley near the pathway but so it wont roll away. Ive never ever been in a carpark where loose trolleys are scooting around, and i always drive very carefully in car parks.
I am quite bemused by the strength of feeling here, but i still maintain that its yet another paid role that big supermarkets have decided to outsource to the customer. I dont believe its as dangerous or perilous as being stated here nor a sign of bad character. I think its neutral.

I dont throw litter, i would not complain to the shop if a loose trolly touched my car. I pick up my dogs shit. I hand in lost property etc. I just do not give that much of a fuck about the fact that tesco have to get a staff member to collect trolleys here and there. I give them plenty of my bloody money and half the time i cant even get a checkout operator anymore. Fuck them. I think its a shame theres so many bootlickers here. Complain to the shops to pay more staff

Love the way people are tying themselves in knots with all sorts of fanciful reasons to justify abandoning trolleys when it wld seem that, as per hooves on the horizon being more likely horses than zebras, the reason trolleys are abandoned is that most folk are just lazy, thoughtless gits!

Apologies though, if my occasionally not returning a trolley at tesco is the true cause of a mass shooting.

Most days putting my trolley back after shopping is low on my priority list. Lower than almost everything else I’d say. Mental preoccupation with work, hunger, stress over my brothers drug addiction, worry over my pending court appearance for cat cruelty, excitement about prospect of watching my favourite tv show, the fact that it’s raining, the fact that it could be raining, the fact that I have a washing on the line, the fact that I have a washing in that I forgot to and out the machine last night and it’ll probably smell funny now, my baby’s hunger, the possibility that addiction could be genetic and my kids could be addicts like my brother, the possibility they could abuse cats like me. Yep all this comes before putting my trolley back. I’m not sure there has ever been, in reality much fall out from an unattended shopping trolley, other than in the minds of those who persist with whataboutery. Please, feel free if anyone has a genuine story about something awful that ACTUALLY happened because someone didn’t put a trolley back after using it.

I have on occasion left mine. I almost always put it back. But on one occasion I wrestled two screaming kids into a car, and a full shop into the boot. And I was crying just a bit because I was overwhelmed and the walk back to replace the trolley just felt too much. Felt bad and lazy and embarrassed about it though, so I was fully aware it wasn’t my normal standards of behaviour 😂

FFS it would be 5 mins max

So going back to my original reply…please can someone remind me about a child abduction in a supermarket car park whilst a parent taking the trolley back to trolley bay …I am so thick that I can’t remember the news!

For me, putting the trolley back is a habit. Like saying "please", "thank you" etc. Whatever is going on in my life, if ive managed to make it round tesco, despite my brother's drug addiction (!) how come i would fall at that final hurdle?

Even if it doesnt hurt anyone, it's just a basic courtsey to return your trolley. A good example to your kids. I agree with pp who say non-returners will be "those parents" with the entitled kids.

I actually respect the pps who say "cos cba". At least they are honest!

Wow, i missed the bit about u abusing cats, dadchat! Wtaf?!!

You worry about your children abusing cats like you do??

You cannot be bloody serious.

Eh?

I have a crappy disability which causes extreme pain (I’m lucky if I get out of the supermarket without bursting into tears with the pain). But I still manage to put the trolley back (even if I’m on a crutch or 2). Sometimes I’m using the trolley to stabilise me on a good day.

Or, I’ll ask a shop dude who’s normally lurking by the entrance to help me unload my bags & put my trolley back as I’m leaving the store. They’re happy to oblige.

In 30 odd years of having this bloody disability, I’ve never once used it as an excuse for poor manners & basic courtesy. FFS.

If you’re in so much pain you can’t simply return the bloody thing or ask someone for help, are you really in the right frame of mind to drive home safely?

@CentrifugalBumblePuppy "If you’re in so much pain you can’t simply return the bloody thing or ask someone for help, are you really in the right frame of mind to drive home safely?"

Are you entering the Olympics for that splendid new category of "I am more disabled, yet more virtuous in my disability than you are in yours" category?