Before we get started this morning, I need to tell you that I’ve never stolen a shopping cart from a grocery store.

Haven’t even really ever considered it. Not seriously, anyway.

Honesty does compels me to report – along with the fact that the statute of limitations has probably already expired – that my college roommate and I “borrowed” a shopping cart from the Pantry Pride in Valdosta for a short period of time once.

We had gone shopping and we ended up with too many bags to carry. So we loaded our bags into a cart and pushed it the quarter mile or so to our apartment.

By the time we had unloaded the cart, it began to rain. When the rain ended – a couple of hours later – we returned it to one of the cart corrals in the Pantry Pride parking lot. No harm, no foul.

I bring all of this up because, until just recently, grocery stores had to post signs in their parking lots telling you and me that it is illegal to take one of their shopping carts.

I’ve seen those signs at the grocery store before, and you probably have, too. They read something like, “It shall be unlawful to remove or abandon a shopping cart to anywhere but the parking lot on the premises of the owner.”

I figured that those signs were there for the same people who buy coffee at a fast-food drive-in and are then shocked to discover the contents of their cup is hot. You know, idiots.

I assume that it has always been illegal to steal shopping carts, whether the grocery store posted signs or not. I assume that because my mother taught me that if I take something that is not mine, it’s stealing and stealing is wrong. In fact, it’s one of the top 10 “shalt nots” in the Bible.

But apparently, at least in Georgia, you had to tell people that stealing is a crime.

It does make me wonder, though, if a good lawyer could get you off if you stole a shopping cart from a grocery store that didn’t tell you, via the signs in the parking lot, that you shouldn’t steal it.

It also makes me wonder if such a law exists for other areas of society.

It’s OK to take a shopping cart unless they tell me I can’t. But what if there’s not sign at the meat counter. Can I take my pick of the filets? Probably not.

Likewise, I’ve never seen a sign at the bank. But I think most of us know that we can’t attempt to withdraw more money that we have in our account, especially if we try to do so while wearing a ski mask and brandishing a fancy handgun.

I’ve never seen a sign at the car dealership that says, “Please do not take a test drive and fail to return the car.” So maybe next week, I’ll go check out the newest models.

I don’t really need a new car. But technology advances so much that the newer models may be much nicer than mine. Helen, my GPS lady, not only gives me good directions, she’ll change the radio station and adjust the air conditioner if I ask.

Maybe in the newer models, Helen will actually drive the car while I climb into the backseat and get some sleep.

I hope for the sake of the dumb criminals of Georgia that they heed this column. In just the last few days, Gov. Nathan Deal has signed a law that no longer requires grocery stores to post signs in their parking lots telling people that it is illegal to steal shopping carts.

So just because the signs come down doesn’t mean you can take all the carts you want. You can’t. You have to leave them at the store.

And it would be nice if you’d return them to where they belong instead of leaving them in the middle of the parking lot for me to hit with my car.

Mitch Clarke is executive editor of The Times. His column appears Sundays. Read previous columns at gainesvilletimes.com/mitch. Follow him on Twitter @MitchTimes.