It’s the Shopping Cart’s Birthday!

What on earth did we do up until 1939, when Sylvan Goodman invented the shopping cart?! Do you take shopping carts for granted?

I can't tell you how many times I have been smack in the middle of a major grocery shopping spree and all of a sudden one wheel on my half-full cart won't work. Now I am putting as much muscle into pushing this dang cart as if I were pushing an ELEPHANT. But what's a girl to do? I'm in the middle aisle of a giant store, and I would have to go ALL THE WAY back to the entrance to get a working cart anyway, so I figure I'll just keep on pushing forward. By the time I get to check-out, I'm exhausted.

Then there are the times that my items are so bulky that I find myself pushing one cart in front of me and dragging a second cart behind me.

It used to be so cute when my children were young. I'd put them in the fake race car or fire truck shopping carts and (after wiping down every inch with sanitizer) they'd get a kick out of being rolled around the store with their hands on the little steering wheels.

Even cuter were the grocery stores that had miniature metal shopping carts for the kids to use. My boys would alternate loading theirs up with produce (cause they liked to weigh things on the scales), and then RACING a hundred miles an hour down the aisles. My shoulders would be by my ears just waiting to be hit in the back of the ankle....OUCH!  Gee, I wonder why I don't see those carts in stores much anymore.

I actually do so much shopping that I get EXCITED when I see a row of brand new shopping carts! So shiny! The wheels work! There are probably not a TRILLION germs on them yet!

Then there's the whole parking lot vs. shopping cart dilemma. After all, they HIRE people to go out there and collect the carts. So do you HAVE TO go out of your way to actually find the corral and get your cart into it after you've exhausted yourself getting all those groceries out of the cart onto the cashier's belt, then back into the cart to roll out to the parking lot, then back out of the cart and into the trunk?

I admit that once or twice I have followed what others do and carefully wedged my cart between parking spaces when there is still enough room for someone else to park without hitting it. I use the excuse that I have two children with me that can't be left alone while I walk a mile to the nearest corral.

And then there's the runaway cart on a windy day. You have just started walking into the store when you turn around and see a gust of wind slamming an empty cart (that someone didn't put away!) into your brand new car.

Ahhhhh....Happy Birthday Shopping Cart!