Grocery shopping isn’t a particularly complicated activity. Most people walk in, grab what they need, and then leave. Ideally, they don’t cause any trouble for the store employees.
One Texan, however, claims to have had a front-row seat to watch someone causing trouble in a parking lot.
“I was having lunch in my car, and there was someone in that spot.”
A content creator (@berfs1.irl) shared a video showing an abandoned shopping cart in an H-E-B parking lot. His video has been viewed more than 5,800 times.
The creator filmed from the driver’s seat of his parked car.
“So I was having lunch in my car, and there was someone in that spot,” he explains. “She did her shopping, and then she… left her shopping cart there.”
He zooms in on the shopping cart, which is near the return area.
“The… shopping cart return area is right there,” he says. “How… lazy can you get?”
He then gets out of his car—while continuing to film—and puts the shopping cart back in its proper place himself.
“It’s… that simple,” he adds.
Internet users overwhelmingly sided with him in the comments section.
“There are so many inconsiderate people these days—it drives me crazy,” one person wrote. “Good job putting the cart back where it belongs—I hope you put it in the right [pen]. The small carts have their own spot.”
“I’ve heard they call this the shopping cart theory,” commented another user. “Basically, if you don’t put your shopping cart away, it directly reflects your character and sense of responsibility.”
“I’ve never done that in my entire life; my mom always taught me to put the shopping cart back where it belongs,” added a third. “It makes other people’s jobs easier… Wouldn’t you like your job to be a little easier?”
What is the “shopping cart theory”?
The “shopping cart theory” is an idea that originated online, suggesting that the way a person handles their shopping cart after grocery shopping reveals whether they are a good or bad person.
The website Scoop Upworthy described it in 2024 as the idea that “putting a shopping cart back where it belongs reveals your moral character.” The publication cited the original thoughts of Jared, a Twitter user at the time who had posted about this theory in 2020.
“The shopping cart is the ultimate litmus test for determining whether a person is capable of self-discipline,” Jared wrote. “Returning the shopping cart to its proper place is an easy and convenient task, which we all recognize as the right and proper thing to do. Returning the shopping cart to its proper place is objectively right. There is no situation, except for extreme emergencies, in which a person would be unable to return their shopping cart. At the same time, it is not illegal to abandon a shopping cart. Consequently, the shopping cart stands as the quintessential example for determining whether a person will do what is right without being compelled to do so.”
In 2024, the Daily Dot described the “shopping cart theory” as “a litmus test for assessing an individual’s morality.”
In the Daily Dot article, a psychologist and content creator stated that she would not leave her children alone in the car to return a shopping cart. Critics argued that shopping carts could roll away and hit parked cars. They added that return stations are usually located nearby.
@berfs1.irl
Subplot News contacted the creator via a comment on TikTok.
The article “A Texan Eats Lunch in His Car. Then He Sees a Grocery Store Customer Break a Fundamental Rule of Etiquette” was first published on Subplot News.
A Texan is eating lunch in his car. That’s when he sees a supermarket customer break a basic rule of etiquette.
