By Willis Webb | Published Thursday, September 4, 2008
Since no one else will tackle this sticky subject, it appears I must take the bull (or cow, whichever the case may be) by the horns and delve into this heretofore untouchable topic - shopping courtesy and shopping cart manners.
For most of my life I've worked long hours, which required shopping times odd enough so as not to encounter much of a crowd. However, since retirement allows such forays in the broad open daylight, I've encountered such a lack of courtesy I felt driven to do significant research. I feel compelled to share the results with you in the hopes we can together steer rude shoppers onto the right paths and, thus, make shopping safer for all mankind.
Do you feel at risk when pushing your shopping cart down an aisle in one of the big box "discount" stores? Do those hurry-up shoppers race up and down and make you feel as if life and limb are in danger? Or does the slow shopper in front of you weave from side to side of the aisle, apparently reading every label on every product?
Does some young mother with a cart filled with groceries, a kid standing on the back of the cart grabbing at bottles, veer across the aisle right in your path just to get to the fruit juices?
Do you get blockaded in an aisle by some 14-member family clan holding a reunion in the cold cereal section?
Does it bug you that a bevy of overweight people are lined up at a food sample stand and are blocking the aisle?
In those big box stores, are you annoyed by stockers as they straighten and replenish shelves right at 3:30 p.m. when all the frantic mothers are trying to buy groceries for the evening meal and get home before the kids' bus gets there?
For guys, do you get weird looks when you're with your wife in the lingerie section, but separated by a few feet, and you hold up a bra and yell at your wife: "Baby, does this one look like it's the right size?"
Or, if you're like me - older and with arthritis - you sit in a chair outside the dressing rooms and wait for her to try on one of the half dozen outfits she took in there. Does it unnerve you when some older woman walks by, stares at you harshly and spews out: "Peeping Tom?"
Then, similar scenario, but instead you are sitting there holding the wife's purse and some giant redneck walks by, grins and points to you while mumbling something about abomination to the female by his side. Are you upset when she looks at you strangely while emitting a belly laugh that would wake the dead?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then either you need to campaign for Ol' WW's Shopping Courtesy Rules as official policy at every retail outlet or seek psychological counseling.
1. Highway rules should be adopted for pushing carts in big box store aisles. Push 'em in the right lane, signal when entering another lane to pass and all carts should have flashing lights and a beeper for when someone begins to back up. Either turn signal indicators must be used or hand signals. There should be speed limits of say, 6 feet per second, and maximum times for stops (enough to grab an item, move on and not block traffic).
2. Large groups of people shopping together should be forbidden by requiring a cart for every two people and congregating of more than two carts (and on the wider aisles only) should be banned.
3. Dispensing food samples should be forbidden inside the store unless there is a food court.
4. Since stocking shelves at 3:30 p.m. is strictly a psychological tactic by the store to make you believe those items are selling so rapidly that you just have to get them now, stores should be required to do completely adequate stocking between midnight and 3 a.m.
5. Men should be banned from lingerie departments.
6. There should be seated waiting areas outside women's dressing rooms with a sign that says "Spousal seating only." And, there should be lock boxes with each seat that could contain a woman's large purse.
I'm sure that some of you have done similar research and have other rules to suggest. You should share it with your friendly retailer, then get out of Dodge.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher with more than 50 years in the business. He can be reached by email at wwebb@wildblue.net.
