This One South Jersey Shopping Cart Picture is Both Funny and Troubling

This is something that is both funny and infuriating at the same time and, as far as I'm concerned, encapsulates what is wrong with society today.

Of course, I'm being overly dramatic saying that, but I think you'll see my point in a moment.

I was driving home the other day and I passed an apartment complex in Mays Landing. What I saw there made me turn around and drive back to take a closer look.

Now, this complex happens to be right around the corner from a shopping center that has a Walmart. Being that it's less than a mile from A to B and you can get there in under 15 minutes, many people walk to Walmart to get what they need. Certainly nothing wrong with that.

Get our free mobile app

It's safe to assume, however, that once people buy their stuff, they load everything into a shopping cart and then use that cart to bring everything home.

Here's the funny and troubling part:

Apparently, none of those shopping carts ever go back to the store.

Ever.

There are about 24 Walmart shopping carts all lined up in front of this apartment complex -- the same way they are when you get one from the store itself.

So if you use a cart to bring your stuff home (which, I guess, could be considered theft since you're taking the cart), bring the cart back to the store the next time you go. Don't take a new one every time.

I'm not disparaging the people that use those carts. Obviously, if I had to carry a ton of groceries home I would look for the easiest way to do so. I'm not knocking people for doing that. But my point is, someone from Walmart now has to figure out how to get those two dozen shopping carts back to the store. And that costs time and money.

And it's not just this apartment complex. Walmart shopping carts are everywhere within a mile or so of this store. I've seen them over by Hamilton Mall, along stretches of the Black Horse Pike. Heck, they've even been used to convey weird messages.

The shopping carts at the apartment complex made me think of the thing you see on Facebook every once and a while where people argue about the virtues of returning or not returning shopping carts when you are done with them. The "Shopping Cart Theory" says you are a bad and inconsiderate person if you just leave your cart in the middle of a parking lot instead of either bringing it back to the store or putting it in those cart corrals.

Anyway, bring the damn cart back to the store either when you are done with it or at the very least the next time you go. Don't make it someone else's problem.