Dusk Through Narrow Streets

In my first week here, my dad and I went to ASDA, the British answer to Wal-Mart (literally; it used to be independent, but Wal-Mart bought it up, and about the only thing different is the color—it’s green, but they even use the same font and the rollback smiley face). I remember both of us being very puzzled by the shopping carts (they call them “trolleys,” but whatever) in the parking lot, all sort of chained together and impossible to get out. We shrugged and found a cart inside the store somewhere, I forget exactly how.

A few weeks ago I made a major grocery-shopping expedition to Somerfield, a cheap supermarket about 1.5 miles from campus; it was a good deal bigger than, say, the nearby Tesco Express, but still smaller than I expected (ASDA and Morrison’s have been the only proper stores I’ve seen thus far). They had wheeled baskets and normal shopping cards, but the shopping carts…used the same chain thing. This time I looked close enough to realize that you had to deposit £1 for the privilege of using a cart, a bit like the luggage carts in airports. “Screw that,” I said, and struggled with a basket that I quickly overfilled.

This weekend I visited Morrison’s, a much bigger store in town that sells all kinds of stuff. The shopping-cart situation appeared to be the same, so I struggled with a basket again, which was fun since I was already carrying bags and quickly picked up some heavy orange juice and canned food.

On my way out of the store, I took a look at one of the trolley corrals in the parking lot. Same system, all chained together, how incredibly stupid, do they really expect people to shell out a whole pound so they don’t break their backs carrying a basket, freaking Europeans, the Turks charge you to use a bathroom and now England wants you to pay for a shopping cart, what kind of—

Oh. You get a pound back when you return the cart. Suddenly I’m feeling rather foolish and thinking it’s actually a clever solution to the problem of rogue carts roaming the store and parking lot.You can’t get people to clean up after themselves unless you give them a really obvious incentive or consequence, after all.

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