Relief for oppressed cart pushers

I could hardly wait for Walmart to open its first store in Newark. Other big grocers were driving me nuts.

Grocery marketing zealots shoved merchandise into pathways of customers under the misguided assumption, I suppose, that we’d be more likely to buy if we had to wrestle cans and boxes to get past them. Many aisles were so narrow that two carts could scarcely pass and the odds were lessened several hundred percent by unattended stock carts strewn about many, if not most, aisles.

Mine was a sincere effort to help alleviate such nuisance-shopping when I called one of the store managers about it. Apparently he assumed that I didn’t know my asparagus from a hole in the swiss: He offered no excuses and nothing changed.

When Walmart opened it offered more roomy cartways - for a while. It didn’t take long, however, for this grocer to start shoving everything in my face as was the local custom, and it no longer mattered which equally bad store I chose; all were perverse in their ability to inconvenience customers.

Then, lo, the Age of Reason struck 21st Street Walmart. Hooray. This store manager at last listened to customers. You want room to push a cart past someone else pushing a cart? You want a well-organized, comfortable, well-lit, newly painted, spectacular retail environment? You’ve lived long enough to see it, Bunky.

Grand opening is July 8th - this Wednesday - according to my most recent Walmart cashier. If you haven’t already seen it, you’ll be amazed at what transpires when a big retailer listens to oppressed cart pushers.