Help! My Shopping Cart Is Locked!
How often have you been at the grocery store, and you just want to take a cart to go on and do your shopping, only for the cart to be locked up? If you're perhaps in the U.S. and are thinking of the wheel locks that many stores use to prevent their carts being taken off the premises, you might be in for a surprise in Germany!
In Germany, if you see a grocery cart, you are overwhelmingly likely to see a small chain attaching the cart at the end of the row to the one in front of it. In order to release the cart and go about your grocery related business, you're going to need to insert a 50 cent, 1 euro, or 2 euro coin into the slot or small tray on the handle bar, and then push it in. At the end of your shopping trip, pushing the lock from the cart in front of yours at the cart return will release your coin, returning it to you so you can debate about whether your should save it to be your cart coin.
The idea is twofold: first, needing to provide a coin means that fewer carts will be taken away from the given shop. Second, and more importantly, it means that the shop doesn't have to have their employees spend nearly as much time corralling carts and prevents the carts from rolling away. Given the number of grocery stores in Germany, preventing a pandemic of runaway grocery carts in city streets large and small (and sometimes within malls, train stations, or airports), is a larger concern than it often is considered in the U.S., with their comparatively larger parking lots.
It's common to see people with a reusable cart coin on their key ring or in their coin purse (everyone's got one in their wallet over here, because coins are actually worth something in a cash first society). If you're going to be over here for any extended amount of time, it's worthwhile to either buy one for yourself, either at some grocery stores for about a euro, at novelty/gift shops (one of the few usable souvenirs you can get!), or as a giveaway at events (look next to the pens advertising something). Otherwise you might just end up like me every other week, and end up buying a new one!