"CHARGE!"

[Mikkel]

Sounds like the old far could do with a glass of elderberry wine.

Aunt Martha's special recipe.
For a gallon of elderberry wine, I take one teaspoon full of arsenic, then add half a teaspoon full of strychnine, and then just a pinch of cyanide.
One of our gentlemen found time to say "How delicious"!

[Raveni]

The Wally World in The Villages has 5 times the power chairs than I've ever seen one store have. I shudder to think about maintaining that fleet.

Wow, electric shopping carts, I remember the old days... We had one brand new "cadillac" that worked great. We also had an old, beat-up, abused "pinto" that barely ran. It always lost charge quickly when having to go up a ramp because the customers took them outside when they weren't supposed to. Somehow, rain also drained the battery greatly.

I could always see the suck coming when a customer would park in the disabled spot, walk past the pinto, come into the store, then complain to the only cashier that she needed to go back out and get the cart for him. Then he would complain that it was beat up, dented, and smelled bad.

"Sir, the employees are not the ones abusing the carts."

Of course, SC would take the cart outside when he was done and leave it in the rain.

[blas]

Must be an old man thing.

My manager is getting pretty old, and I swear no matter what he says, all I hear is quacking, like a pack of mallard ducks are nearby.

[Betweenshades]

Then he would complain that it was beat up, dented, and smelled bad.

Well, stop poopin' on 'em!

[Captain Trips]

Hey, Irv, let me start by saying that I love your tales of the swamp, and you hold it together better than I ever could. For this, you have my undying respect. But I do want to mention a couple of things in your tale without being thought of as trolling.

1. Why were you surprised when she got up out of one scooter and walked (limped, I think you said) to the other? Did you expect to have to pick her up? Most people who need the store loaners are ambulatory, but not very. If they aren't, they already have their own scooter.

2. Most scooters have a little lever somewhere on the back to put them in "neutral" which disconnects the motor from the wheels. If this one had one it would make it easier to push to the front.

Now, as to you being personally responsible for a lack of CHARGE! -- it is usually considered good etiquette amongst those who *really* need the scooters to plug it back in when they return it to the front -- so your tale is actually one of two sucky customers, you forgot the prior user who forgot to plug it in after they were done! (I've learned these things from my wife, who has just recently acquired her own personal scooter. She's a polio survivor, so I have learned a heck of a lot about the needs and etiquette of the disabled community.)

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

1. I dunno, I guess I just kinda expected the old guy to do something other than bray at me like a donkey.

Occasionally there are people who can't even get into the store themselves to use the scooter. Somebody has to go drive it out to them.

2. If there is such a lever on this scooter I don't know where it is and I don't even know who to ask to show me.

[Brojekk]

Occasionally there are people who can't even get into the store themselves to use the scooter. Somebody has to go drive it out to them.

I often wonder how they get from the house to the car,and vice versa when they go home. The having to have someone drive it out to them is pure laziness IMHO.

[LadyAndreca]

I often wonder how they get from the house to the car,and vice versa when they go home. The having to have someone drive it out to them is pure laziness IMHO.

We have a couple of them at our store, and I'd NEVER call laziness on either. One's a disabled vet who's a double amputee below the knee and has prosthetics--he knows how to make the carts behave when they don't want to work, too. He takes a taxi to the store, and he can walk very short distances with a cane, but who would make him? The other has no feeling in his feet, and usually comes in with his brother, who gets the scooter for him.

Of course, BOTH of our scooters have shorts in them. (I DO wish the head cashiers would stop telling people they can take them out in the parking lot in all weather. Yes, they're heavy duty and the wheels can take it. But that's ice rain out there!) I've reported it to multiple managers, since only a manager can put in a repair ticket, but so far nothing's happened.

[Rapscallion]

Just had flashbacks to the Electric Buggy of Death.

Rapscallion