Shopping from a wheeled-handicapped cart

I have to admit, I often thought these people who scoot around the grocery stores in those little driven shopping scooters were just being lazy and having a little fun sometimes.  They looked pretty normal to me, why were they in those carts anyway, not that it was any of my business.

Enter me with one sprained ankle.  By the end of the night, my foot aches, my back is sore from hobbling and rocking sideways to walk.  So a riding shopping cart looks like heaven to make my shopping a bit easier. Hey, it's my turn to have a little fun, right?

Well, I'm here to tell you, you get in a disabled shopping cart and the world changes around you.  You become almost a non-entity and people cut you off,  will not wait for you to get by but expect you to wait on them since you are sitting and seem to have all day to shop therefore. I must have knocked 4 different things off of corner shelves or nicked the plints at their corners just rounding them. Some of them had a place to put my foot out, most did not. Things are hard to reach on the shelves and up and down standing is still required for many items. Turning around is a chore because they don't quite make it or you have to back up, then go forward. Backing up is annoying because I have to listen to that blasted beep, beep, beep sound like a broken down bus that's required to bleat pathetically when backing.  I know, I know, there are reasons for all of this.  it's just I hadn't been exposed or noticed them until now.  I guess these "cart people" were non-entities to me as well.  These carts move so slowly, my husband had to continually stop and wait on me to catch up.  Many of them had already run out of juice or were slowing down as I went deeper into the store, making me fearful I'd be stuck in the back with no power.  One did run out of juice literally, but my husband was able to push me to the front.  Another one's handle that made it stop and go literally fell off and almost landed on my foot, clanging noisily to the ground.  Many times there weren't any even available.  Wow!  And this all happened in my small window of 3-4 weeks with a foot boot on.  Imagine what these people deal with all the time?  Oh and did I mention they have to be plugged in at the front of the store?  You might find one available with no juice in it, or it just started it's charging cycle however long that might be, no signs mentioned how long it took to charge or when they started?  

I actually prefered the wheeled chair shopping carts since my husband could push me, or I could push the handles and go myself.  Of course once again, who knew I would be rubbing my hands all over the floor since after a couple of revolutions around with the wheel, your hands started feeling dusty and grubby real fast.  Food samples, no thanks, or wait- can you place that in my mouth for me?

I know now that no one would voluntarily want to shop that way unless they really needed to.  It's a real pain, almost more than walking with my foot if I had to do it the rest of my life.  But then, if I had to do it that way or not at all, then it would once again feel different to me. I guess it's all in your perspective.  I know one thing, I will yield the right of way to those shoppers more now versus charging my cart on past them.  We'll all be at the front check out sooner or later.