I once working in a supermarket were we used regular shopping carts to haul garbage back to the compacter. Those same carts were put back out for customers to use. The only time they were ever cleaned was when it rained.
I don’t sweat the bacteria on the seat area ( but I always put the plastic flap anyway, so stuff doesn’t fall out). I do put my purse there, and clip it (securely fastened) to the metal wire of the cart with the carabiner on my keychain. Somebody’d be in for a big surprise if they tried to snatch it.
I put my purse in the cart, and if I stray more than arm’s length from the cart, I put it back on my arm.
I think people who worry about germs on the bottom of their purses need to seek treatment for their undiagnosed OCD.
You obviously have never had your purse stolen (from the backroom at work, in case you were wondering…it was hung on a hook by the coats, a “customer” stepped into the open backroom and took it…we now hang purses behind the door where they can’t be seen) and had to deal with the attendant problems. Luckily my keys to my house and car (and the store, and two other stores I worked at, and my other car, and my storage unit, and my church…) were in my coat pocket, or getting home would have been a nightmare. I lost my cash ($3.14…why steal from retail workers right before payday?) my checkbook, my debit card, (the one time it pays to only have $4 in the bank) my driver’s license, all my library cards, my insurance cards, my calendar, and a host of other small, essential-to-my-comfort items. The worst part was losing my lipstick…the color is discontinued, and I loved it…thank God for eBay!
In all, it cost me over $100 to replace everything I had in there. If we would have had to re-key the store or my house, the cost would have been much, much higher. And I had to deal with that crappy feeling you get when someone has stolen from you. So sit down right now and add up the cost (and hassle) or replacing everything in your purse…taking time off from work to replace your driver’s license, ordering new checks for the new account number for your new checking account which had to be closed, and not being able to get any money from the bank until the bankcard was replaced…and see if the ordeal of keeping your purse on your shoulder doesn’t seem just a bit more cost effective.
And as for leaving your purse in the car…do you know how much replacing a broken window on your car costs? Less than your deductible, so it’s best to pay it out of pocket and not make a claim, but the glass goes EVERYWHERE and is a hassle to clean up. The company that replaced my window was supposed to clean up the glass, but we’re still finding pieces a year later. Add that to the cost of replacing your purse, and see which is the better deal! I live in a great neighborhood, but cars are broken into all the time at the Bally’s around the corner, and everytime they report on it in the local paper’s Police Beats, the police express amazement that people leave purses and wallets in the car.
I’ve been tempted to do something similar. I swear, if I was dishonest, I could probably score a purse every time I went shopping, whether in the grocery, WalMart, or Lowe’s. I saw a couple with 2 carts full of stuff at Lowe’s, her purse balanced at the handle of the one the husband was pulling from the front as he followed his wife. They stopped to look at something and I could have been out the door with her purse before they were done in that aisle…
But I’m not one for making a scene, so I kinda keep an eye till the purse owner comes back, then I move on.
As for the seat, I put stuff there that I don’t want to get squooshed - eggs, bananas, bread, like that. I don’t sweat germs. I wash my hands often, but I refuse to use antibacterial wipes or soaps or any of that silliness. I’ve managed to survive 53 years in a germy world. Go me!
I put my purse in the seat area there without a thought for the germs that might be there. I don’t leave it there if I need to take my eyes off of it, but I usually shop for the same stuff week after week, so it’s a matter of push the cart and grab stuff off the shelves. Maybe I should worry more about leaving my purse in the cart; purse-stealing the minute your back is turned doesn’t seem to be a problem here. Knock wood. 
(I do wash my hands with soap and water every time I come in from shopping, though. All those shopping cart handles and door knobs, you know.)
Nope, never have- and I’ve left purses, wallets and credit cards unattended in some pretty scary places.
knock wood
I’d love to see the person who tried to walk off with my bag. It’s huge, it’s heavy, and it’s very distinctive - It’s a Safari Club International bag, not many people have those in public on a daily basis.
I don’t keep anything actually valuable in there. I usually keep my debit cards and license on me, my keys in my pocket. Everything else is just things like books, reporters notebooks, and my very crappy cell phone. Heavy, but nonessential. I don’t keep a wallet and I don’t keep cash on me, and I don’t keep shit like my social security card in there. I have had my purse stolen in the past (by a Nine Inch Nails groupie, actually, while I was working the concert…they stole it from backstage, those assholes), but really, I don’t keep things in there that are truly important. The worst thing they’d steal would be the business cards and my cell phone - the cell phone would be replaced within a day (thank goodness for insurance) and I have tons of business cards at work.
Oh, and sometimes there’s a water bottle or a bottle of soda in there. But mostly it’s junk. I usually take it in shopping with me because I usually write my shopping lists in my reporters notebooks.
~Tasha
I’m not particularly worried about my purse being stolen, or about germs, although if I’m going to be more than 5 feet or so away from my cart I’ll take it with me. Otherwise it sits in the baby seat, with the eggs, bread, and strawberries.
Can someone tell me exactly what I should be so worried about? E-coli? Flu germs? Is there really a significant risk, because I’ve never been careful about germs, and I don’t seem to get sick any more often than other people–maybe a cold once a year or something minor like that.
I’ve noticed that the stores around me have started a little station with disinfectant wipes right by the cart stand, so that you can disinfect the cart yourself it you’re anxious about such things. I don’t mean to freak any of you cautious types out or anything, but remember that sometimes people put those germy kids in the basket part as well, not just the seat area!
I used to put my purse in the seat, then secure it with the kid-restraint straps so I could shop freely, but then I would get interrupted by Good Samaritans who would warn me about leaving my purse in the cart. They didn’t see that it was strapped in. Now I just put it in the seat with the strap around my wrist as I push the cart. If I have to step away, I take it with me.
And I always wipe my purse down with rubbing alcohol before I lick it. 
I got lectured enough times as a young teenager by my mother about keeping my purse on me at all times that I now am pretty good about not leaving my purse in the shopping cart. However, I still use the baby seat to put wrapped foods in; I’m really not that concerned about getting my foods cross contaminated, and those antibacterial wipes are eventually going to make for some superbugs that won’t respond to the antibacterial wipes’ germ killing abilities.
I’ve never worried about germs in a shopping cart; I use the baby seat all the time for eggs and bananas and whatnot.
The purse varies. If I have my large, messenger bag-type deal, then that gets slung across my body. If I have my smaller purse, it gets put into the baby seat. It has a short strap, so it doesn’t stay on my shoulder easily, especially when I’m flailing about while trying to reach the upper shelves. (I’m 5’2, and the nutella is always on the top shelf.) I don’t leave my cart unattended, and I’ve never really worried about it.
I’ve even forgotten my purse in my cart and driven away, only to realize that it was gone when I got home–twice. It was still there when I went back. (Of course, it was night and the purse is black, so it would have been hard to spot.)
Is it just me or are Americans becoming increasingly germaphobic? People are afraid to touch shopping carts now? It seems like stuff that used to be obviously neurotic behavior is now seen as normal. Everybody’s afraid to touch anything, and god forbid they touch another person.
These attitudes are not normal or healthy or rational. What’s going on?
I wipe down the handle with the wipes provided, for my own benefit and for my child’s if he is riding in the seat. Honestly I have never worried about the seat itself - I don’t think it could be worse than the handle. That’s where everyone touches with dirty hands, I bet there are more things you can get from a handle than from a seat where a child’s diapered, clothed butt had been. I have never had my child’s diaper leak on a seat, modern diapers are pretty good. In my experience, diapers leak most often when they are very small, I only had trouble with leaky diapers for the first few months when stuff came out as fast as it went in and the diapers were too tiny to hold much. Then he was either strapped to me at the store or in his car carrier anyway, not touching the seat at all. Toddlers touching the handles with their germy hands is much more of a concern to me than where their clothed butts have been. I would be more worried about the mom who just changed her baby’s diaper and then touched the handle then her kid’s butt on the seat.
I don’t worry about trying to sanitize where others have been too much, I just wash my own hands a lot. I can’t control where other people leave their germs but I can control how clean my own hands are.
That’s a subject that is truly up for debate - we have at least one other thread on this at the moment. We should probably take this discussion to one of those threads.
They did an investigative report here in the SF Bay Area about shopping carts. They followed store employees in the process of reclaiming shopping carts used (and then later abandoned) by homeless people. The report showed that the employees simply put them back in the racks without ever washing or cleaning them in any way. :eek:
I always do the paying so there’s never a purse involved when we go grocery shopping, but the seat is where we put all our fruits and veggies (though usually in the plastic produce bag first).