He was in the cart seat. I leaned over to put groceries into the cart. He sneezed, I got sprayed.
How would you suggest that she prevent it?
I usually can’t even stop myself when I feel a sneeze coming on. I don’t know how I would stop a toddler from sneezing. It’s a pretty powerful bodily reflex action.
But I do know how to prevent getting ‘sprayed’. Having seen that the kid was “snot-nosed”, I would just avoid putting myself within range of that nose. He’s just a kid; you’re the adult in this encounter.
So I have to agree with rachelellogram, there is a bit of contributory negligence here. Something we’ve all probably done, and later regretted it.
By teaching her children to cover their mouth/nose when they sneeze, or by not dragging her sick child out at 10:00 in the night in order top buy chips, pop, and beer.
I bet she doesn’t even shovel her sidewalk.
That’s pretty hard to do on a child this young, though.
That is certainly true.
But then, it’s pretty hard to get a babysitter at that time of night. Probably the father would work, assuming he is living with the mother. Which might be a big assumption.
Shove noisemakers in the nostrils. It contains the spray and cheers everybody up to boot.
This must be part of the reason every place I’ve been to has a separate cart to load the bags into. You show up, put your stuff on the conveyer belt, get it checked, bag it, and it goes in the other cart. When you are finished, you pay, remove anything else from your cart to the new cart, and leave. The bagger then moves the your cart to where the bagging cart was, and you start again.
It’s more convenient, and this sort of thing doesn’t happen. Heck, the cashier has a Purell at her station so she can sanitize after touching your money.
That said, while I feel for you, OP, these sorts of bugs tend to incubate for at least 24 hours. So if it hasn’t been that long, you may have already had this.
Plus, I’m still a bit confused. The way it works in all the carts I’ve seen, the kid faces away from the basket. Unless the woman did something weird, the kid shouldn’t have been capable of sneezing in your face.
This indicates to me that you don’t spend much time around short people with no bowel control. There are very few critters more elastic than toddlers. (Says the mommy who compares diapering/dressing her 10-month-old to “packing a wet octopus into a mesh bag.”)
Hate to throw facts out here, though, OP: Depending on the age of the child (and maybe you mentioned a ballpark figure and I missed it,) it’s really unrealistic to expect that a child without bowel or bladder control would automatically sneeze into his elbow. And if you were handling groceries, money, debit cards, etc., it’s just as likely that you contracted the cold from hell from the nice little old lady with the tissues up her sleeve as from the wee hellspawn with no manners.
Mommy, however, should have issued a horrified apology. And you have my sympathy. I’ve had about three colds from heck* this winter, and they are no fun at all. If you were anywhere near my neighborhood, I’d stop over with a care package of chicken soup, orange juice, and aloe-permeated tissues.
*Trying to get a jump start on watching my mouth. Littlest Matata is verbalizing pretty well now, and I don’t want to get in trouble with the grandmas when she starts repeating bad language! 
Isn’t every month Bad-Tempered Bitching Month in the Pit?
And, if I’m not mistaken, December was Religion is Stupid/No It’s Not month.
Quite true.
The OP’s job really puts her on the front line for exposure to such things. From anyone, any time.
Friends have told me that in Japan cashiers often wear gloves and face masks when dealing with the public. I can’t imagine that here – customers would not react well to it.
My money is on the Jews for March.
Isn’t it FAP free February?