ALDI's is a portrait of humanity

I am mostly being tongue-in-cheek with the title, but like. There's a kind of funny and charming thing I've noticed that people will do when shopping at this grocery store. For those who don't know, ALDI's is a German discount supermarket chain that started expanding its presence in the US in recent years. One of its key features are the coin-locked shopping carts. All of the carts are locked together in their stall until you insert a quarter to disengage the lock. Upon returning the cart you lock it again and retrieve the quarter.

Naturally as with any coin-operated anything, people sometimes are caught without change. So occasionally, people will return carts but leave the quarter in the unlock slot, or will pass their carts to people who've just arrived, to save them the hassle. But the funny thing I've noticed is that the handful of times I've done a cart handoff to someone, they've always handed me their quarter.

It's funny! It's funny because like. You don't need to, I'm doing this for free, I can get other quarters. But everyone still understands "a quarter" as fair value for having access to the carts. So they thank you by giving you theirs. And I'd be lying if I said the gesture wasn't appreciated, small physical token of thanks for a small gesture. What a funny and endearing social phenomenon.