I have left the shopping cart. but only because I had small kids in the car. But then again having kids is a perpetual state of emergency, so I guess it falls under that clause, and I might be welcomed back into civilization.

This is the problem with generalities: there is almost always an exception. This happened to me a while ago: The grocery store I go to can get busy and has a pretty small parking lot, so it is often full. It is also one-way only so the lanes are narrow. I was loading my groceries into my car, and another car was waiting for my spot. When I finished, I went to return the cart, but the driver of the other car rolled down the window and told me not to bother, and that she will take the cart herself.

Now, I could have ignored her and returned the cart, which according to the video would have been the "correct" thing to do, but that would have simply lengthened the time the other driver had to wait (as well as the cars behind her since they couldn't go around her), for no real benefit other than to return the cart. Instead, I pushed the cart out of the way, got into my car and left. Even though it was technically "wrong" for me to have done this, I feel it was the correct thing to do in that situation.

Moving this video to TheFreak's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.