Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

Shopping Cart Rant

When I heard what might spill on the place where a baby's butt is placed on a shopping cart, I almost gagged. It must be the age thing. While I was raising my children, such images never disturbed me, maybe because I was wallowing in them.

Then the other day when I picked a shopping cart, the stickiness from its handle invaded my grip. Obviously, a candy-eating child's saliva had polished the handle. Luckily, I carry a tiny bottle of hand-sanitizer in my purse.

When you observe the grocery cart in any supermarket, it has all kinds of things for the protection of the child, from "Never leave a child unattended" warning to straps and a seat plate. Special carts for mothers with the child sitting in a special fun seat are really good, because they protect everybody, not just the child.

The child sits in a toy-carlike partition and the groceries go into the wire mesh basket. Obviously regulating the shopping cart design is more desirable than regulating a child's behavior, strike that, a parent's behavior.

Some parents let their slightly older children with muddy shoes stand inside the shopping cart's basket. As if I am a shopping cart sentry, I feel like saying, "Excuse me, but in there goes our food material."

Protect the kids. Add belts, shoulder straps, or even helmets to the shopping cart, if you wish. Then, protect us, the consumers, who have forgotten all about childraising or those who never had any children, also. Don't we deserve cleaner shopping carts?