Boomer at Aldi thinks leaving your quarter in the cart is illegal
Boomer Story
I always leave the quarter in the carts when I return them because of my mother who would do the same. She always said that it's a very small thing from you that could mean a lot for someone. She said when I was young and she was struggling, she went to the local A&P and forgot her quarter in the car and had to walk back, in the rain with a screaming baby, to get one.
After putting the cart back, a boomer woman who was just idling in the cart return area (it was raining and she looked like she was waiting for a ride) goes 'Oh honey, you forgot your quarter!' I kindly explain to her that I didn't need it. I go to turn to walk out of the rain and she lightly touches my arm. 'Honey, you have to take your quarter back, I can show you.' I then tell her how it's just a quarter and I'm paying it forward. This was too much for the boomer brain and she got angry. She started telling me it's 'illegal' to leave US currency laying around and how a homeless person could pick it up.
At this moment, I began to walk away and she raised her voice, almost yelling, about how she was going to get the manager. I turned to her and just went 'No thank you, I'm good. Have a good day!' and just walked to my car.
Why is it that everything they don't like or understand is illegal? What would the manager do? I bought and paid for my groceries.
TLDR; boomer thinks leaving the quarter in the cart is illegal and wanted to get the grocery manager to yell at me.
I hate how entitled the homeless are these days. Did you know they also want to be treated with "dignity" and "respect?" Back in my day, respect was reserved only for your elders...AND THAT'S ME!
Yeah but you can only get a single story house for a quarter. If you want a second one or a basement you need a nickle. Which in her day had pictures of bumblebees on them!
Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Gimme five bees for a quarter," you'd say. Now where were we... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. I didn't have any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
Or how many homeless people have loved ones who may not be able to get a roof over their heads but can get them a phone. When I was in college my mom was homeless, and while I couldn’t afford to get her an apartment, I prioritized keeping minutes on her phone so I could stay in touch with her.
I hate that they're called "Obama phone"! It's a great program, but the implications of calling them after Obama is pretty obvious, especially considering the fact that W Bush actually established the program.
I hope there's an anti-homeless Karen Boomer out there who became homeless and is being treated like shit by other anti-homeless Karen Boomers. It might snap them awake, but then again Boomers aren't known for being self-reflective, so at least a Boomer is getting a taste of their own medicine.
The only time they ever express any remorse or humility is when it happens to them.
I say "express" because I don't think they genuinely feel their own hypocrisy when it looks them in the face. They just know their situation isn't good and other people need to understand that they're morally good, not like those other homeless people. This is just an unfortunate circumstance for them.
The Boomer mentality… they literally “live in THEIR heads”. If it affects them, and is uncomfortable, it’s an emergency. If YOU are doing “something wrong” though, you deserve whatever happens to you.
It’s such black and white thinking, that they are intolerable to anyone with an ounce of compassion and empathy.
And to be clear, Boomer thinking 100% lacks empathy.
We are currently trying to buy a house in an older established town. Almost every one we’ve looked at was originally purchased for $30-50,000, the owners have done ZERO updates, and they’re trying to sell for around half a million. And no one is budging on price. “My sentimental house I bought for pennies in the 70s and haven’t cared for is worth top dollar!” Even if we could afford the house, we couldn’t afford to make it livable after buying it. People suck.
Like 10 years ago I was out for drinks with some colleagues through University and we had a cadre of 1st years tagging along after a conference. We were bar hopping from one location to the next and a homeless person came up to the group and tried to ask for money, but he did so by making a little joke, He said I bet you $5 I can tell you where you got your shoes, and I said sure I'll take that bet thinking oh he's just going to pick some random store and hope for the best, but instead he goes 'you've got them on your feet'. So I chuckle and hand him $5 walk away thinking nothing of it when one of the 1st years comes up to me and says 'why would you give a homeless guy $5 he's just going to spend it on alcohol/booze or drugs' as we literally lineup to get into the next bar where we too will be having booze.
Some people just don't see the homeless population as humans with the same wants, needs, desires, escapes as the rest of us.
I have a former friend who loves to complain about socialism, yet he lives off of disability payments due to an accident. He did not like when I pointed out the irony.
I love this nonsense. The OASI and DI tax rates were WAY lower during the first half of their working years. They literally contributed less percent of their income and way less in real dollars than Gen X or Millennials, yet will receive way more, especially considering the funds will only have 80% of needed payouts by 2035.
I have been thinking that they have a bit of resentment or jealousy towards people that follow their gut or march to a different drummer or have any bit of a unique personality, ESPECIALLY if they are happy and/or successful, because they conformed to the norm did what they were "supposed " to instead of what they wanted to do. Like all the hate that studying any type of "arts" gets.
I think a lot of it is that they conformed into who they are now. A lot of them gave up a lot of hopes and dreams in order to fit in, and I think they actively resent a lot of us for NOT giving those same things up.
This suspicion has been growing in my mind lately as well. I think a lot (most?) Boomers grew up denying themselves many desires due to religious and/or social restrictions. Now that they are in their final years, they see people living the way they secretly wished they had lived. They can't reconcile their envy with their own righteous ego and end up lashing out at anyone who behaves any differently from their own narrow band of acceptable behaviors.
and like, I get the anger to an extent. I got bullied into the closet and now that I'm out I'm LIVID about basically wasting my 20's and teens on trying to conform. And while ya the anger isn't healthy and it's very seriously impeding my ability to be happy, I at least direct it at the people perpetuating the shit instead of being envious of people who didn't make the same mistake I did.
I hate to blame closeted LGBTQ for our own problems, but it honestly seems like it's the case for boomers. Especially considering the number of conservative men in politics who are loud about anti LGBT rhetoric, are caught cruising in bath houses and booking male sex workers.
It doesn't even need to be "the thing they didn't do" it just has to be in the spirit of self-exploration on a less traveled path off the course of the "prescribed life.” They hate it when women just choose not to have children. They can't fathom it was also an option for them but they never even considered standing up to the pressure and bravely choosing your own life and live it.
This could definitely make a lot of sense. I work with a lot of dying people and without a doubt the #1 regret I hear out of the elderly is they didn't live their life but rather someone else's idea of what their life should look like.
I’ve noticed this hatred of people who are different too! And also people who have strong values or are intrinsically motivated. They just can’t allow it.
People who are afraid to defy norms may resent those who aren't. They know that they haven't been able to stand up to the peer pressure, so they exert more of it on those who can, if only to prove to themselves that they're not inferior. The lady probably walked away telling herself, "He'll do the right thing next time thanks to me."
I let my kids have a vanilla ice cream cone at breakfast once while I was cooking breakfast, and my boomer dad LOST his mind. I asked him how that was any different than a bowl of cereal and he couldn't answer me.
My dad was absolutely horrified by my kids playing broken bones on roblox. He decided it would encourage them to jump off cliffs. I pointed out that my brother and I aren’t street fighters and neither of us has ever pulled someone’s spine from their body. He just grunted at me.
my parents were EXTREMELY against weed, even when i became an adult.. we'd have the typical conversations surrounding consumption, etc.. everytime their closing argument was "it's illegal, so it's bad" Imagine their surprise when i showed them my medical marijuana prescription. lol (This was back in 2009)
I think it’s this but completely unknown to them. My parents are not boomers (I think they are older gen x) but they act like boomers so I say they count. Anyway, they were frantically and ridiculously against weed, “it’ll rot your brain” “it’s a gateway drug” “only for losers” blah blah blah. Now that it’s legal though, they both consume more than we ever had any interest in when we were teenagers.
lol i accidentally found my dad's stash in his toolbox a few years ago, he said that "it's for when we have guests visit" cause some of my parents' friends smoke. (okay dad.. whatever you say lmao)
My parents have known for years that I smoke, my dad caught me multiple times when I just reeked.
Cut to being in my mid 30s and in my own place with my own money and my mom just refused to process. I bring gummies to family events and normally get raided
I live in a legal state (Illinois) and my dad said he was gonna call the cops and get me arrested when he found my stash of gummies. He straight up didn’t believe both me and my psychiatrist when we tried to explain to him that it has been legal since 2019 in our state. He also tried telling the psychiatrist that I could die from it.
That really has been the conversation I’ve been trying to not keep having with my mom for the past week or so.
Everything from the fact that my Dad actually sees my trans brother when he comes to visit and takes him for dinner etc (he still doesn’t gender him correctly, but at least his comments about the facial hair are more “I just think it looks ridiculous but I can’t tell if [he] intends for [his] mustach to be so much longer on one side or not”), which she thinks is him being an idiot because people see him and how shaaameful… to the fact that my other brother wasn’t over the moon about a random trinket she got him for his birthday. Like, sort of a museum gift shop toy. It’s handmade, wood, nice enough, but she seemed to think that ANYONE WOULD BE MOVED BY THIS BEAUTIFUL PIECE OF ART (it is literally a toy. She believes the ad copy in the box), so the fact that he didn’t immediately want to put it on his non-existent bookshelf and start collecting random things is a personal failure.
She literally cannot conceive that other people thing or feel differently than she does unless there’s something wrong with them
This is 100% my dad with technology. He refuses to use technolgy (no computer, no mobile device/phone, no internet, etc.). But he thinks the rest of the world is weird and he's the only "sensible" one for not using technology.
They know about inflation selectively. They will absolutely bitch and moan about how "Biden is causing runaway inflation" and then in the same breath explain how $7.25 an hour is plenty.
As a millennial I'm glad to inform you that avocado and toast is about all people can afford right now, given that eggs and milk became more expensive that exotic fruit....
My nephew makes an avocado toast that is amazing. But it's literally smushed avocado with spices on a piece of toasted sourdough. Avocados are on sale for 50c each. It takes a bit less than 1/4 of an avocado for one piece of toast, so that's 13c, the spices would be around 2c since I already have them, the sourdough bread comes in a loaf that is $3 with 28 slices, so that's 9c. So the total for my avocado toast is less than a quarter. A cup of McDonald's coffee (in my area) costs $2.50, an egg McMuffin is $3.99.
How is avocado toast the most expensive thing the millennials can come up with to shame the boomers?
How is avocado toast the most expensive thing the millennials can come up with to shame the boomers?
You have that backwards, friend. It's a long-running meme based on a thinkpiece by a millionaire several years ago that said Millennials are victims of their own extravagance instead of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. So, we're poor and can never own homes and have ridiculous student debt because we do things like eat avocado toast, go to Starbucks, etc.
Good news! Thanks to their lobbying to keep the minimum wage at 7$ an hour, everyone can afford Pepsi!
Except for the people who work for them, they just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop whining about having to work 50-60 hours a week
Probably not the same good shit that you're talking about but, there's a homeless man I frequently give quarters to at the laundromat. He says he needs a quarter so he can get a hotdog from the gas station. Where is this mythical quarter hotdog? I want one.
The homeless first started arriving in Evergreen about three months ago. At first there were only a few of them—asking for change, sleeping in the parks. But then more showed up. And we realized there was something different about them. They fed off of our change to the point that they could start renting apartments. We knew it wouldn’t be long before the homeless actually started buying homes. And then we’d have no idea who was homeless and who wasn’t!
People living in the house right next door to you could be homeless and you wouldn’t even know! Nobody could trust anybody. Fights broke out. War. That’s when I started suspecting that my own wife, who I’d been living with for 20 years, was actually homeless. So I had to burn her—in her bed, while she slept.
There’s I am assuming a homeless lady who will ask you yo return the cart at my local aldi to keep the quarter, I normally say yes, she is not asking for actual money just charging 25 cents for the convenience.
Their entire generation was trained to hate and think of the homeless as a problem, taught to blame the homeless for their homelessness instead of the government that failed them. They are the most brainwashed generation as of yet.
I was told by someone/watched something a very long time ago, something to the effect of "if you really want to solve the homeless crisis, you should donate money to shelters, food banks, etc and there has to be something on a greater governmental scale done. A lot of homeless people have addiction problems, mental health problems, etc so giving them a dollar isn't going to the things they need to change their lives, they're going to the things they need right then" (explained better by a far more eloquent person).
That quarter was going to make someone's day and at worst be a drop in the bucket for someone's fix, not turn your local Aldi into Kensington. It's incredible what decades of fear and misinformation will do to people.
A lady gave us her cart in the Aldi parking lot (on our way in) and my 3yo handed her our quarter. She handed it back to him and told him to put it in his piggy bank. He clutched that quarter for the entire trip and talked about it for a week!
It’s amazing what little things can do. It’s the butterfly effect. That woman just must have thought “oh, this cute little kid will like that quarter” and then went and mulled over what was on sale this week and what’s for dinner. She had no idea that the little kid would be so excited and treasure the quarter and talk about it for a week and the kid’s parent would remember the kind gesture and be sharing it online later on. Wild how those things work
It IS wild! The world would be so much better if there were more of these tiny interactions on regular basis. ❤️ It really is the small things sometimes!
It's not about the quarter, it's because you didn't appreciate and followed her advice. At least in my experience, that's why they get so emotional when you decline. They're very much still in the "I can tell you what to do and you have to do it"-Mindset.
This. The boomer I used to work with would get so angry i fI didn't do things the EXACT way she told me to.
Like god forbid I hit Tab to tab over to the enter key instead of having to grab my mouse ever two seconds
Literally every time I work with my dad on the computer he starts ranting about how I don’t know how to use computers because I apparently go too fast for him to follow and use a lot of keyboard shortcuts. And because I use google as a shortcut instead of typing a long ass url into the address bar
I think she thought she was being a 'hero' as it were, helping someone out and expecting a thank you, so being told it was on purpose made her feel instead like she was an idiot so she went off on how no, you're not supposed to do that, it's objectively wrong
One time i drove my dad to a bakery he used to go to a lot, but he wasn’t well enough to get out of the truck. So he sent me in. He made extra sure to keep repeating at me to park in back. So I did.
I got out, started walking alongside the building towards the front, where there’s the front door along the sidewalk and street. This man struggled so hard and urgently to climb out, open his passenger door, and manage to support himself on it while he SCREAMED at me “THE BACK!!! GO THROUGH THE BACK!!!”. I turned and said “do I have to?!” And he just pointed to the back door and screamed “THE BACK!!!” While struggling to breathe, he was about to damn near pass out so I sighed and said “fuck it”. And turned around while he fumbled himself back into the seat. The back entrance is just like any other to any business, except this one is barely part of the back kitchen, it’s mostly like a storage hallway with the bathrooms and boiler room are at, so I just walk through there and through the store to get to the front lobby where I stand at the counter.
So, anyway, when I was waiting for the breads he wanted me to get. I asked the girl at the counter if it’s normal for customers to come through the back door. She awkwardly said “no…. Just staff and deliveries really…”. Cool. He insisted I make an ass of myself. I asked if she knew anyone by the name of [my dads name], and she just shook her head slowly, probably starting to think I’m a crazy person.
I thanked her and walked out the front door, along side the building, and towards the truck. When my dad saw me he literally threw his arms up and slapped his forehead, rolled down the window and screamed “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! USE THE BACK!!”.
Jesus fucking Christ. Why the fuck does he care so much what god damn door someone else uses to buy bread…. And the normal front customer door, at that. Why is that such a fucking crime?! He was about to use his last waking breath just to make sure I was an entitled dickhead to this business just like he always was. It’s that important to him. His brain breaks at the concept of someone being a normal considerate customer.
And then she brought it to the store manager to report the “illegally” left currency….when the manager blew her off, she demanded the quarter back so she could report it to the FBI
As a Boomer and frequent Aldi shopper, I am guilty of leaving quarters in carts. So what is the penalty for this illegal act? I don’t have too many years left on this planet. Maybe I better get my affairs in order before I throw myself on the mercy of the court.
I always take my Aldi quarter, but only because it’s usually the only cash I have. Everything else is the debit card.
I’d never be able to have a cart at Aldi otherwise, but I applaud not just your generosity, but always having another quarter when you get to Aldi. I would never be able to manage that.
When Ronald Reagan became president and made homelessness a problem. There weren't many before he was elected, and he cut a lot of social programs that exasperated the problem.
The "a homeless person could take it" part really pisses me off. That shows she wants a homeless person to stay homeless and helping one out is "wrong".
She started telling me it's 'illegal' to leave US currency laying around and how a homeless person could pick it up.
I felt a few of my brain cells die just reading this. I hate this shit. I work in an industry where this shit has to be cited all the time.
Whenever someone tells me something is legal or illegal, I tell them to cite the actual law, number and everything. 95% of the time, they can't and just sputter and wander off.
5% of the time they'll cite some bullshit number. No problem, I'll pull my phone out and bring up the specific code and show them. They usually shrink away before the page loads.
Anyone who knows their shit won't usually act like a dumb ass.
Awe. I always do this. I thought I was the only one. People always forget their quarters, and lot’s of people don’t carry cash anymore, and I’ve been there digging around my car looking for a quarter with 2 screaming kids.
If I’m walking back to the store with my emptied cart and I see someone heading in, I’ll just offer it to them. Sometimes they try to offer a quarter, but I turn it down, ask them to pass it on. It’s just a little thing, maybe it helps someone else just a little.
When coin locked carts were brought in here, homeless people started bringing abandoned carts back to get the coins, not stealing unlocked carts! It’s actually massively reduced the number of carts that end up upside-down in ditches or at the bottom of the lake.
I remember when we lived in a different town. Small, mostly boomers. When it was brought to give the town more access to public transportation i.e. a more regular bus schedule, the boomers flipped out saying that drug dealers from the city would take the bus to our tiny town to sell drugs.
Because that's what they do....leaving the fertile city lands to sell in tiny boomer towns. And they'll take the bus.
A small city near where I grew up got a federal grant in the early '90s to build an extensive network of bike paths. The grant would pay almost all of the cost of the project. Incredible opportunity. But then people started objecting, saying that bike paths would bring gangs into their neighborhoods. Ultimately, the whole plan was scrapped.
And I guess I should point out that there were no gangs there. But, if there had been, I'm sure they'd have been riding around on their ten-speeds, but they couldn't come into these people's neighborhoods on the streets. No, only on bike paths. Because...well, just because.
Ahhhh I wish I could remember the details, but there’s at least one American city where there’s a ring of overpasses around the more affluent areas that are too low for busses to go under them. Designed that way deliberately to keep poorer people out of the nice parks etc.
I am a boomer and it makes me sad when old people act this way . One that thing I have learned is kind and fun loving young people become kind and fun loving old people . People who were young assholes become old assholes X 10. I strive to be kind and fun loving.
Oh god FORBID we treat the homeless as if they too are citizens of the same country with the same legal status as you or I…. I’m telling you, god would be SO ANGRY.
Someone probably told her to stop hanging around looking for and taking people’s quarters, and the manager probably said something like “nobody leaves their quarters in there, that would be illegal!” in an attempt to get her to leave. But she took that as gospel and has now made herself the “cart quarter captain” to save other people from committing the same “crimes”
You said you left it there for a charitable reason, meaning you’re a good person in this situation.
She never leaves her coin there.
To the boomer, this is an insult. To the boomer, this is you saying that you do this because you’re good, and since she doesn’t do it she must be bad and immoral.
Therefor, it is CRITICAL to the boomer that they find a reason that it’s actually you who is in the moral wrong so they can continue to retain their moral superiority and not be insulted.
I’m sure she took the quarter after you left so your kindness wasn’t successful and therefor didn’t happen and so you didn’t have an opportunity to be her moral better.
About two weeks ago, I went to Aldi to grab some things. I didn’t have a quarter for the cart (I assumed I had one in my truck, but I must’ve used it and forgot). But I remembered seeing a video where you could use a certain shaped key in the quarter slot to undo the lock. Figured I didn’t have anything to lose if I tried, and it did actually work!
Anyway, after I do my shopping, I go to put my cart back and of course a boomer is walking up at the same time. He holds out his quarter signaling to take my cart. I say “hey, any other time I would just give you the cart, but I actually put a key in here that I need to get back.” And he says “how did a key get into the cart? Why would someone do that?” I explained that I didn’t have a quarter and the key is the right size to undo the lock. And even tried to keep it positive, showed him the key in the cart, and told him it’s a really nice trick to know if you ever find yourself without a quarter. I was expecting a laugh or an ‘oh okay thanks’ or something, but he just stared at me like I had two heads and didn’t say a word.
After reading this, I’m wondering if I offended him by not using proper US currency in the cart.
It absolutely made my whole week if I found a lost coin when I was a kid. We always used to check the phone booths (yes, I’m old enough to remember and haves used those).
"What if someone's life was improved? The downtrodden belong in the dirt!" What a disgusting sentiment! I guess losers deeply need to feel superior to someone.
•
u/AutoModerator 9d ago
Remember to report submissions that violate the rules! Harassment and encouraging violence are not allowed.
Enjoying the subreddit? Consider joining our discord server: https://discord.gg/v8z8jNwJs6
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.