cultural difference as defined by grocery carts

at the no frills yesterday, waiting in line behind someone with an obvious lack of education on healthy eating (cart overflowing with food so manufactured it was the quasi-culinary equivalent of michael jackson's nose) and i got to thinking about my time in ecuador. the check-out lines in most of the country are about a foot narrower than the lanes in canada while the carts are perhaps an inch or two wider. this means that there is a constant battle to get the round peg in the square hole syndrome as people rear up to make an effort at the cash but have to resign themselves than they're not gonna fit, no way, no how. so carts are casually flung aside, directed toward people waiting in other lines or simply steered into the void, sent careening in the direction of cereal displays or sample wranglers (my term). it's somewhat fun to cast your cart aside when you reach the till, let the people behind steer it away like some wonderfully obtuse game of pass the buck. the thinking is that some employee, usually an acned male teen will tackle the carts before they do damage or create metal beaver dams to flood the front of the store with impatient customers. and you do see these employees roaming about, sometimes ripping the cart from the hands of someone who has recently emptied their catch at the cash and maneuvering it toward a cache of other carts waiting nearby.

i guess they are trying to avoid anyone stealing the carts, and given that labour costs are so low they can afford to hire a few extra hands to help people get their bags to their cars. i find it silly though because they simply load up the bags on other carts (double knotted bags - they tie your groceries off) and wheel the whole mess to your car, a process that could easily have taken place with the original cart had it been designed to fit through the cash area.