Just in the last six months, maybe a little longer, I have noticed something new in the grocery stores. Short shopping carts. These are perhaps one of the greatest things I have seen in recent years. As a bachelor, going to the grocery store usually involves picking up only a few things. Previously, I had three options. Try to carry everything by hand. Use one of those baskets that you can carry around. Or use a full-size shopping cart.
Now, carrying items around by hand is fine if you only need two items, or possibly three if the items can be held in one hand, but for grocery shopping this will certainly not work.
What about the baskets? Don’t get me started on those. They could possibly be the worst shopping invention ever made. Have you every used one? First of all, they are extremely awkward to hold. And if you put so much as a bottle of pop in them, the weight distribution is unbearable. It’s not that they are too heavy, it’s that they throw your center of gravity completely off balance. You constantly have to shift baskets from one hand to the other.
So, the best option had been full-size shopping carts. And they worked okay, but usually I found myself putting all the things I was buying in the child seat area, and that has the problem of smaller items falling out into the main basket anyway. Ultimately I had to reach down to the bottom of the cart no matter what. In additional to that, I always felt silly pushing around an enormous cart when I was only getting a few things.
All that has been relieved, however, with the introduction of the compact shopping carts. These miniature carts bring a certain amount of satisfaction to me as I push them around the store. I actually like going grocery shopping, simply for the thrill of navigating these through the isles. They maneuver much better. Ninety degree turns are a cinch. They hold exactly the right amount for a single person. They are perfect. The only question I have about them is: Why on earth did someone not think of this sooner?