Shopping Cart Theory: separating humans from beasts
I used to know a speech pathologist who played "The Word Game" with her public school students, and she said the hard-of-hearing kids, when asked what the opposite of "headlights" was — no matter how carefully she pronounced it — almost always answered, "not having head lice."
An assumption that the kids’ misunderstanding was just about their faulty ears would miss the point. It was also related to the context of the students’ experience. They had never changed a headlight. But they had probably had to change their hats.
Today, some people might say that the kids’ answer was “their truth.” That would be incorrect. No matter what, the true answer for everybody will always be “taillights.” Lack of familiarity with car parts is no justification for denying their existence.
But the kids couldn’t help it. They couldn’t hear what they couldn’t hear and didn’t know what they didn’t know.
If one understands the context, one could easily see that the kids weren’t stupid or uncooperative, the speech therapist told me. They just lacked a little information.
I identified with them on some level last April, when I was introduced to a new social value that has become prevalent without regard to the context that might contradict it.
I was extremely gimpy at the time, and I had a hard time making it through Tony’s Fresh Market in Lincoln Square. I was barely able to finish shopping and drag myself to the car.
I left my shopping cart in the surprisingly commodious space between aisles in the parking lot. There was no way I was going to waste my waning strength returning the cart, and then hobbling back to the car. I drove home, where it took me a half hour to get the food upstairs. I was somewhat proud that in my weakened state, I was still able to get it done.
My pride was misplaced.
About a month later, I discovered that by not bringing the cart back, I had established that I was not fit to live among righteous people.
Something called “Shopping Cart Theory” had appeared on the Internet, and it has not gone away since. The theory states that those who do not return carts after use have failed a test of “whether a person is capable of self-governing.” The reasoning: Since no one forces anyone to return carts, doing so is a test of whether one voluntarily will do the right things in life.
The anonymous but widely-quoted theory brooks no exceptions to its philosophy.
“You must return the cart because it is the right thing to do. Because it is correct.
“A person who is unable to do this is no better than an animal, an absolute savage who can only be made to do what is right by threatening them with a law and the force that stands behind it.
“The Shopping Cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.”
Those three paragraphs have a certain Teutonic flavor, do they not? “You vill return ze cart. It iss correct! You are no besser zen und animal.”
Despite the tone, every person I’ve talked to about this meme agrees with most of it. This agreement comes even though the meme exists outside the realm of honest context.
For instance, if you have a child or two in tow, what’s more important, returning the cart or not leaving your infants unattended?
I have actually seen people get soaked to the skin returning carts in pouring rain. With lightning.
The meme, of course, does not address the fact that axe murderers, cannibals and members of elected school boards have all been known to be fastidious about cart returning.
Several folks told me tales of fealty to The Great God Shopping Cart that stretched back to the 1970s or earlier. They and their forefathers and foremothers have always returned carts, they assured me. I believe them, but the truth is inescapable that if they are not lying, they have poor memories or are admirable exceptions to the unwritten rule that was in place for decades after the creation of supermarkets.
Shopping carts used to litter supermarket parking lots, occupying spaces, rolling into delicately-painted parked cars, blocking driving lanes. Bag boys haunted the lots, chasing down the carts. Some people returned their carts after use. Lots of people didn’t.
Supermarkets were invented as something of a luxury. Part of the pampering was, to many people, not having to do anything even slightly unpleasant, like bringing back a cart.
But about 30 years ago, all that changed. It was the work of our friends the Germans.
A company imported from their country, Aldi, came to the United States, bringing along one of its bright ideas: make people put a quarter in a cart to unlock it, and don’t give them back the quarter until they return it.
At first, Americans rebelled at the very idea of paying, even temporarily, for something they had always gotten free. But that didn’t last long, because they wanted to get into the stores that sold cheap food.
By the 1990s, the Aldi stores had become ubiquitous in many regions. And none of them were spending a lot of money paying employees to fetch carts.
Other supermarkets liked what they saw. A lot. Most of them were busy busting their unions, and they loved the idea of fewer employees. But they didn’t like the quarter idea. It was déclassé.
The other markets were not run by dummies, however. They all started installing “cart corrals” in their parking lots where customers could stow shopping carts when they were done with them. At first, the corrals were ignored. But they caught on.
There were several reasons. One was that people felt guilty if they saw other folks using the corrals. So there was peer pressure.
Another reason was Aldi. Customers had been trained to bring the carts back for the quarter. After a while, the quarter became unnecessary.
It’s a phenomenon known as classical conditioning. You’ve heard of it. It was discovered by Pavlov, the Russian dude with the drooling dogs.
Perhaps this sounds unbelievable and insulting. But there are other examples that may convince you.
Have you ever gone to a discount grocery like Aldi that requires you to bag your own purchases? Of course you have. So, if you went to the discounter a few times in a row, then to a regular grocery, did you have an urge to bag your own groceries even though there’s somebody standing right there ready to do that as part of their job? Maybe then you watched the bags being filled and even felt a twinge of guilt for not helping out.
Here’s another one. Aldi has been telling you for decades that you help them keep their prices down by bagging your own groceries and returning your own cart. But several years ago, Aldi prices started inching up to the point that there’s not much difference anymore.
Maybe you still shop there and haven’t noticed any change. But that’s OK. You can be comforted by the fact that Aldi appreciates you.
After all, you’re doing a great job.
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