Public service announcement for people who don’t give a damn

You Didn’t Return Your Shopping Cart and You Will Be Punished

There are nine circles of Hell, but you get five

Is it that hard? Really? You’ve pushed the cart to your car and put the bags in the trunk or backseat. There’s just one more step. To bring it back to the cart return. Why, oh why, then is the parking lot littered with these orphans who cry out to return to their brethren?

You have relegated these lost souls to Purgatory to be crapped on by birds or used as a stunt vehicle for midnight hoodlums, so you cannot go unpunished.

As part of “The Divine Comedy,” Dante’s “Inferno” takes him through the nine circles of Hell — think lust, gluttony, greed, etc. — led by the poet Virgil. You probably deserve nine as well, but I’ll bet you have a really short attention span too, you monster, so we’ll stick to five.

I’m no Virgil but I’ll accompany you, but only to watch you suffer.

#1 — Harried

OK, you have two kids — or more — and they are screaming, or fighting or trying to break the dog leash you have on them to run into traffic, so your priority is to throw everything in the car and get home. But once you have the littles securely imprisoned in the mini-van, you could have done it. Giving the cart a push in the right direction doesn’t count.

The first circle — Your abandoned shopping cart shows up in your driveway, your office cubicle, and by your bedside to watch you sleep. You can’t push it away now, can you?

#2 — Minimum-ist

This might be the best effort of the harried or just the half-assed try of any person. That wedge of grass by your car is not the cart return. It’s a wedge of grass. And the haphazard way you’ve put it there means it’s probably not going to stay put.

The second circle — Enjoy as everyone around you gifts you with the bare minimum. Your chicken sandwich at lunch is just this side of salmonella. The team project that you were heading up? Everyone else did squat for the presentation so you can forget that raise. Marital relations? It’s not the cold shoulder. It’s the tepid one. Way, way worse buddy.

#3 — Willful Blindness

If you would just turn your head to the left you would see the cart return right there. But instead, you lazy wretch will pretend it’s in Siberia so you can abdicate your responsibility and just leave it in the empty parking space beside you. Guess what else you won’t see? The next person who pulls into that space and hits it.

The third circle — The fender bender you get into on your way home won’t be an isolated incident. The person who slams on their breaks for no reason. The sideswiper on the interstate. The random gouge you get in the long-term parking lot at the airport. After a month your insurance adjuster starts ghosting you. You will beg to return to the store parking lot and fix your mistake. But you can’t, evil doer. It’s too late.

#4 — Assuming

You know what they say about the word assume? It makes an ass of U and Me. Well, there’s only one ass here and it’s the person who just left their cart for the overworked teenager to deal with. The one who just helped an old lady load twelve bags into her car in 95 degrees and is thirty minutes past time for a break. But no, sure, let him or her walk all over the lot to pick up after people like you. You’re the top of the pyramid and we’re all there to keep you closer to the rarefied air, aren’t we? U-G-L-Y, you ain’t got no alibi.

The fourth circle — Get ready for everything you touch to scatter. The money you try to hand the Starbucks barista. The puzzle with 999 pieces placed and one to go. The box of spaghetti you were about to boil. Your thoughts. All will disperse to the four ends of the earth. Now you pick them up.

#5 — Apathy

I’ll bet you throw your fast food wrappers out at red lights, don’t you? There is no punishment too great for you because you just don’t care. If you don’t tie your shoes or flush the toilet, you’re not going to do the right thing here either. Shame won’t work on you. Guilt either. You, fiend, are beyond redemption. But not retribution.

The fifth circle — You want to take your hands off the cart handles but they are stuck there, for all eternity. You’re the Sisyphus of shopping carts. Just try to bring that sucker back to the return now. Nothing doing. Get used to sleeping upright and urinating where you stand. What? You say you’re thirsty? Better hope someone takes pity on you. Because it damn sure isn’t going to be me.

Betsy Denson, 2021

I did it Smillew Rahcuef!