A man, a car and a shopping cart

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How many millions of dollars in damage to cars are caused every year by lazy shoppers who leave metal carts anywhere but where they belong?

My wife sent me to Whole Foods Market in Paramus on Wednesday in search of organic chicken feet for a tasty poultry, yam and vegetable soup that both she and my son devour.

I checked the freezer where I usually find them and asked the butcher, but there were none to be had. 

But I saw 100% grass-fed lamb shoulder blade chops from New Zealand at an excellent price, $6.99 a pound, and bought three for a future dinner for them.

My wife used chicken necks she had to make the soup.

On the way to my car, I saw a distinguished-looking, white-haired man maneuvering a late-model Acura into a parking space and nudging a shopping cart that was left there by the lazy moron who had the space before him.

The cart rolled a few inches and hit the front bumper or fender of another car.

I got into my car and started to drive past the man and his Acura. Instead of moving the cart away from the other car, he was opening his trunk.

I lowered my window and asked him why he wasn't moving the cart? Is it possible, I said, the man was so out of it he didn't realize he pushed the cart into another car?

He was with his wife. He stammered, then said he'd move it. 

OK. Does anybody know why manufacturers don't install rubber pads or bumpers on the carts to minimize all the damage to shoppers' cars?

I guess there is no solution to lazy shoppers who are so exhausted from picking out groceries, waiting in checkout lines and loading their purchases into their cars that they just drop the cart anywhere. 

At the ShopRite in Englewood, shoppers need to deposit 25 cents to unlock a shopping cart, then return the cart to a corral to get their coin back.

Why don't more stores do that?