Pictured above are runaway carts which were rounded up after a night of carousing this past Friday night, making their way across the street from their home at the Meijer in Okemos.

The sight of the Meijer employees corralling the carts made me laugh - and fondly remember my first real job (after a stint as a babysitter), which was a grocery store 'bagger' and cart chaser in Midland, Michigan.

This seemed like a LOT of carts who escaped the confines of their corral just one night - I REALLY want to know if they found them all in one place or if it was a scavenger hunt to collect them.

It's obvious why it's worthwhile to send people out to bring 'em back, since they're reportedly worth between $75-300.00 apiece.

This stat was gleaned from the interwebs:

The Food Marketing Institute reports that nearly 2 million shopping carts are stolen each year, translating into a per-store loss of $8,000 to $10,000 annually — and that's only in the food industry. Retailers estimate that the annual cost of shopping cart theft is almost $800 million worldwide.