Shopping Carts and Anal Sex

I have OCD – and part of the benefits of having this wonderful mental illness (I call it a personality trait, not an illness) is that I wash my hands, doorknobs, the bathroom floor, etc., constantly. People at my work know that I have OCD. I don't advertise this, but from my actions, an observant person could guess. I like cleanliness – and that's part of the reason, I believe, that I have never been very excited about anal sex. The bottom was made as an exit, not an additional orifice in which to place a penis. Men see a whole and think "friction"; I just know they do.

Well, people send me articles that they think will entertain me. And, no, this is not going to be about anal sex. Sorry. But there will be fecal matter involved. Fecal material in supermarkets – really. I am going to post the full article italicized at the end of this post – just to show you that I am not making this up.

Drum roll please.

Researchers found that about half of shopping cart handles "weren’t frequently cleaned," and 21% tested positive for bodily fluids. Think about shopping in a supermarket for a moment – we get a cart, use the cart handles to push said cart, and sometimes sample food after touching cart handles that may contain bodily fluids.

Shopping cart handles are dirtier than public restrooms but not as dirty as playground equipment. Children are our future, but apparently we don't as a society want to pay to clean them to protect our children.

I mean, technically, it may be as sanitary in some instances to place fingers in a stranger's butt than to touch a shopping cart. Come to think of it, at least with the stranger, at least you know you are touching unclean parts. When we toodle around with a shopping cart, we don't really realize how dirty we are being.

You know, the more I learn, the more afraid I am of stuff. I think when folks say, "Ignorance is bliss," that is what they mean. At first, I thought it meant that it is nicer to go through life not thinking all too much – it is a lot less work just letting things go by. Now I believe that it is far nicer not to know things because of the overhead involved. I mean, health concerns aside, I imagine it is more comforting not to know how close the US gets in pissing contests with other countries. How many missile crises have we gone through and not known it?

Pardon me while I wipe down my desk. It's not that I think co-workers are having hot steamy sex on my desk after I leave. But you never know – I mean, fecal material gets on shopping carts in ways I really don't want to contemplate. So the next time someone wipes their hands after shaking hands, don't think they are merely strange. After all, they really don't know where your hands have been.

Truly a 'must-have' for shopper
Friday, February 03, 2006
Janet Cho
Plain Dealer Reporter
Gnaw on this the next time you're at the supermarket.

You know that shopping cart you don't think twice about grabbing with both hands? The one in which you toss all the fixings for dinner?

Well, chances are pretty good it's teeming with germs, bacteria and other things you don't want to know about.

Shopping carts are filthier than public washrooms, which at least get sanitized regularly, says Kelly Reynolds, an environmental microbiology professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Think about everything you load into your shopping cart: fresh veggies, raw poultry, your firstborn.

Now consider this: When Reynolds and other University of Arizona researchers tested nearly 1,100 public surfaces for germs, shopping cart handles turned out to be among the dirtiest -- right after children's play ground equipment and public bus rails and armrests.

Grocery cart handles tested positive for the proteins found in mucus, blood, urine, sweat and saliva, as well as for salmonella, E. coli and fecal matter.

The results indicated that roughly half of shopping cart handles weren't frequently cleaned, Reynolds said. Twenty-one percent tested positive for bodily fluids.

Even worse, "We witnessed children actually directly mouthing the handles."

For about three months, Heinen's Fine Foods, the family-owned grocery with 16 stores in Northeast Ohio, has offered shoppers disposable SaniCart Wipes to wipe down carts between uses.

"We don't wipe them down every day or anything like that, but we're pretty proud that our carts are pretty clean," said Jeff Heinen. "We steam-clean them twice a year."

Reynolds' response: "Twice a year is better than nothing, but when you think about it, it's only as clean as the last person who used it."

She said the fabric covers that some parents take to the grocery store to cover the seat before baby sits down often end up taking those very germs home. The covers must be properly laundered between uses.

Response to the SaniCart Wipes has been somewhat underwhelming.

"The vast majority don't use them," Heinen says, perhaps one in 20. The ones who do, however, rave about them.

Tops Markets LLC, which has 46 stores in Northeast Ohio, plans to install SaniCart Wipe dispensers in its stores within a month, said spokesman Denny Hopkins. Giant Eagle Inc. said it is also considering providing shopping cart wipes.

SaniCart Wipes, made by Nice-Pak Products Inc. of Orangeburg, N.Y., are one of several EPA-registered disinfectants designed to wipe out germs like staphylococcus, salmonella and the common flu virus.

Named "Best New Product" at the 2004 Food Marketing Institute trade show, the wipes are in about one-third of America's supermarkets and on the verge of launching in Canada, according to Jon Luposello, product manager for Nice-Pak.

"The people who are most appreciative of the product are customers with small children," he said. Moreover, "We're getting interest from other retailers."

Reynolds, who now not only washes her hands more frequently but also carries her own disinfecting wipes, said many store employees aren't taught how to kill germs.

"I was at the grocery store recently and there was a big pool of blood on the conveyor belt," she said. "And when I asked for something to wipe it up, she handed me some paper towels and window cleaner."

Although proud of the research she did, Reynolds said she paid a price for collecting all those samples. "I caught the nastiest illness I've ever had in my life," she said. "I was sick for about three months."

Now, that's taking one for the team.