The WinCo parking lot has become a lawless frontier. Not because of crime — because of shopping carts. Abandoned shopping carts rolling freely across the asphalt like tumbleweeds in a western nobody asked for.
There is a corral. It is painted yellow. It asks nothing of you except an additional fifteen to forty feet of walking after loading your groceries.
Last Tuesday I watched a grown man in a Carhartt jacket park his cart directly behind someone else’s Subaru and walk away. He did not look back. He did not hesitate. He simply decided the cart’s journey was over and the next chapter was someone else’s problem.
The shopping cart is the one situation in adult life where there’s no reward for doing the right thing and no punishment for doing the wrong thing. It is a pure moral choice. This valley is failing it.
The corral is right there.
Brenda Kettlesworth is a retired dental hygienist and three-time Gallatin Valley Recycling Volunteer of the Year.
