- Thanks to three and a half strong and hard working movers from Tippet-Richardson, our move went very smoothly. Three and a half, because really there were four, but one of them was highly irritable and less than mannerly on occasion. In any case, nothing got broken, and we're lucky to have been able to get our treadmill and freezer into the basement of the new house on account of some narrow basement stairs.
- Stores aren't quite as close as they used to be in Richmond Hill, but they're far less busy. We ventured out to Superstore (another Loblaws brand) over the weekend to pick up some groceries, and as I pushed the cart around the store, I noticed the sign prominently posted in the cart which claimed that the cart was protected by an anti-theft device! If moved beyond the yellow lines in the parking lot, the cart would lock, so that you couldn't have your way with it.
- Having to see this for myself, after we'd checked out, we made our way back to the car, which happened to be parked about 20 feet away from one of these yellow boundaries. Charging up to the yellow line on the pavement, everything seemed fine -- until a few seconds later, when the front wheels locked completely. The smart thing to do would have been to empty the groceries from the cart first, before having it rendered inoperable. So we ended up dragging the cart to the car to unload it. On closer examination, only the front wheels lock. But one back wheel has a sizable steel bracket angled towards the ground which only touches and impedes the back wheel if you pick the front of the cart up off the ground. The thing is, the wheels don't unlock when you move the cart away from the yellow line and back inside the boundaries. I'm surprised there were no sirens, and no cart police!
- It's good to see that Loblaws is making so much money that they can't properly stock their store shelves, but they can afford to invest in "cart protection" systems for their stores. How many carts have to find their way to people's front lawns for stores to adopt a system like this?