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Does not returning your shopping cart make you a bad person?

A viral TikTok has people questioning whether there's any excuse for setting your cart adrift.

By Peter Chianca

June 7, 2024

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We’ve all been there: You’re in the Market Basket parking lot, having just loaded all your groceries into your car. Maybe it’s hot, or rainy, or you’ve already got your kids in their carseats. You could walk your shopping cart all the way over to the cart return rack … or …

Stop right there, you heathen! Would you actually consider leaving your cart in the middle of the parking lot, cut adrift, doomed to idle there askew until retrieved by a hapless stockperson? For shame! You are clearly a bad person.

At least that’s what was posited by a social media theory making the rounds a few years back: that the direction of your moral compass could be determined by whether or not you’re the type to return your shopping cart, when there are no clear individual benefits for doing so. It’s a theory that was at the receiving end of a recent viral TikTok by a mother in California, who made no apologies for abandoning her shopping cart like a puppy in Revere.

“I’m not getting my groceries into my car, getting my children into the car, and then leaving them in the car to go return the cart,” said Dr. Leslie Dobson, a clinical and forensic psychologist, whose post has received more than 11 million views and 10,000+ comments. “So, if you’re going to give me a dirty look, f— off.” She seems nice.

@drlesliedobson #groceryshopping #shoppingcart #traderjoes #protectourchildren #protectourkids #educational #groceries #singlemom #drleslie ♬ original sound – Dr. Leslie

In Dr. Dobson’s defense, though, she posts a lot of videos about child safety and seems to be legitimately concerned about kidnappers jumping out of their windowless white vans to snatch children from SUVs. But maybe she’s also just a little lazy? Only she and her own clinical psychologist know for sure.

But what’s your take? Is there ever a time when it’s OK — morally, we mean — to just leave your shopping cart loose in the lot and drive off into the sunset? Or is the shopping cart theory correct, and leaving your cart behind unreturned is a reflection of the dark vacuum in your soul? Take the poll below to let us know, and we may feature your responses in an upcoming article.