Gross-ery Carts

I spend quite a few hours icing cakes at work, and sometimes my thoughts drift off into places I probably shouldn't go. For instance, the other day, I was decorating a teddy bear cake, and I could hear some kind of commotion going on in the meat department (it's on my left), so I stopped what I was doing and went to take a look. What I saw was one of the guys throwing garbage into a grocery cart. WTF??? There's no way he's allowed to do that... is he? When he saw me looking at him, he just smiled and told me that he was about to make a trip out to the compacter.

I returned to the bakery to finish working on the teddy bear cake, but I couldn't concentrate. People put food in grocery carts, and this guy was using one to haul out the trash. EWWWW!! What if he puts the cart back with all of the others without bothering to clean it with some disinfectant spray first? Heck, are the carts ever cleaned at all to begin with?? At that point, I literally had to stop what I was doing and go ask one of the service clerks (the guys who round up the grocery carts outside and bring them back into the store) if the carts ever get sanitized. He had no idea. So, I asked another guy. Again, no idea. The third guy that I asked said that the rain washed the carts when they were outside. Uh, OK, buddy.

Back I went to the bakery with my mind still turning over thoughts about food being put into grocery carts that are never disinfected. Not good, not good at all. Sure, we put fruits and veggies in plastic bags, and most other food items come packaged some way or another (ex. soup in a can, cereal in a box, etc), but the food is still being placed into dirty carts, and traces of whatever is in those carts is getting on those packages, and then being transferred to tables, counters, cupboards or wherever we're putting our groceries when we get home. EWWW!!!!

At that point, I should have stopped thinking about dirty grocery carts and gone to my happy place or something, but my next thought was inevitable. Just how dirty are the carts, really? It's one of those things you want to know, but don't want to know. Know what I mean? Anyway, I figured a little digging around on the Internet would surely turn up something, so I gave Eddy a call on my break and had her do a Google search.

Me: Hey, it's me.

Eddy: Hi, aren't you at work?

Me: Yeah, I'm on my break. I need you to Google something for me.

Eddy: OK, what?

Me: I want to know how dirty grocery carts are.

Eddy: Huh? Where's this coming from all of a sudden?

Me: I'll tell you the whole story later because I only have a few minutes. Can you find out?

Eddy: Yeah, hold on.

Me: OK, cool.

For the next 30 seconds all I heard was Eddy clicking away at her keyboard, and then...

Eddy: Disgusting!!

Me: You found something?

Eddy: Yeah, you sure you want to know?

Me: Yup, tell me.

Eddy: Well, it turns out that the University of Arizona conducted a four year study and discovered all kinds of nasty stuff --- urine, fecal matter, saliva, blood from raw meat, E-coli, salmonella, staphylococcus, and....

Me: Sick!!!

Eddy: Got that right. Basically, they're worse than public bathrooms.

Me: WHAT??? No way!!

Eddy: Yes. It's because the bathrooms are cleaned daily and the carts aren't.

Me: OMG, that's right. EWW!!!

Eddy: Yeah, forget grocery carts. It's more like gross-ery carts.

Me: Big time gross.

Eddy: Uh huh.

Me: Alright, I have to go. Thanks for checking.

Eddy: Sure. You should definitely blog about this, by the way.

Me: It's gonna freak everyone's freak.

Eddy: Yup.

Me: OK, I'll talk to you later.

Eddy: Yeah... and stay away from the carts.

Me: Hahaha, I will.


Will you???

JB