# Howard



## Acct2000 (Sep 24, 2005)

I thought of you last night. I was taking my walk to my grocery store. Someone had left one of their carts about a mile away, so I pushed it to the store. I used it for my groceries; I figured I had earned that right!


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Yeah right,
You were just pretending to be homelss and probably scored a few bucks, a warm coat and some fast food.
At least that's what the local guy with the flag and milk crate , carboard sign saying he was a homelsss vet, thankyou and GOD bless did.
Then somebody photogrpahing the SOB sneaking across the street into a 3 y/o cadillac and driving home to hte sister community north of us.


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## Acct2000 (Sep 24, 2005)

LOL

No. I was just an innocent exercise walker/grocery shopper trying to save the local store a cart. I bought a piece of salmon, some premade salads and some broccoli and went home to watch the Survivor Finale.


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

Well I had home made chicken burritos with rice and beans, a Dos Equiss and watched The Wild Bunch, one of my favourite british period pieces shown on Masterpiece Theater. 
'I wouldn't have it any other way.'


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

forsbergacct2000 said:


> I thought of you last night. I was taking my walk to my grocery store. Someone had left one of their carts about a mile away, so I pushed it to the store. I used it for my groceries; I figured I had earned that right!


On our monthly pilgrimage to the Costco store in Merrillville, IN, we always find those large, white carts dispersed all over the store's far flung parking lots. As a matter of habit, I will grab a couple and my wife will collar one and we take them back to the store front or one of several cart corrals. On one such adventure, a while back, I commented, "if this were Pathmark, we would be getting paid for this." My wife's response..."Huh?"


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## 14395 (Mar 10, 2004)

I don't know if Aldi no frills supermarkets are nationwide.

At Aldi, you have to put a quarter in a slot to release a
cart from the cart rack. To get your quarter back you
have to return your cart to the rack yourself.

Aldi claims it saves them the expense of having to hire
cart clerks.

When I first heard of this, all I could think of was 
Howard :icon_smile:

https://www.aldifoods.com/us/html/company/3503_ENU_HTML.htm


> Why do I need a quarter to use a shopping cart at ALDI?
> At ALDI, we cut costs every way we can to keep prices low. Our shopping cart deposit system is a good example. You insert a quarter to release a cart. When you return the cart, you get your quarter back. This system cuts down on the labor of collecting carts left in the parking lot, damage to cars, and we pass the savings on to you.


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## Acct2000 (Sep 24, 2005)

I willingly do this at Aldi. It is a great place to save money on the items they have. (I still buy about half of my groceries at our local Meijer store because Aldi does not have everything.)


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## Kav (Jun 19, 2005)

You haven't heard?
In California the newest innovation are shopping cart wash stations @ $20,000 a unit. This is to sanitize for all those nasty virus, bactteria and otehr critters 3 y/o tiffany can pickup while mumsey buys the Perrier and organic BBQ chips.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

forsbergacct2000 said:


> I thought of you last night. I was taking my walk to my grocery store. Someone had left one of their carts about a mile away, so I pushed it to the store. I used it for my groceries; I figured I had earned that right!


You know Forsberg,Pathmark wants me to their superman sometimes like finding carts 3 or 4 blocks away and once in a while I'd see 3 or 4 carts just sitting there and I'd bring them back to the store.And they say Shopping Carts are prohibited from the store.So,why people do it is beyond me.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

I'm just sick and tired of taking all the flyers from the carts,I'll leave only a few of them in,customers only trash the wagons the next day anyway,so why bother?


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## LoneWolf (Apr 20, 2006)

Kav said:


> Yeah right,
> You were just pretending to be homelss and probably scored a few bucks, a warm coat and some fast food.
> At least that's what the local guy with the flag and milk crate , carboard sign saying he was a homelsss vet, thankyou and GOD bless did.
> Then somebody photogrpahing the SOB sneaking across the street into a 3 y/o cadillac and driving home to hte sister community north of us.


This is similar to the subplot of a Stephen King book that I read years ago. One of the characters had a very elaborate ruse that included dressing as a prosperous businessman, going to his leased but vacant office every day, changing into his Blind Veteran drag, sneaking out of his office, panhandling for the next 8 hours, and then reversing the process. Art imitating life, or vice-versa?



Kav said:


> You haven't heard?
> In California the newest innovation are shopping cart wash stations @ $20,000 a unit. This is to sanitize for all those nasty virus, bactteria and otehr critters 3 y/o tiffany can pickup while mumsey buys the Perrier and organic BBQ chips.


At the Pavilions near my house they have little dispensers of hand sanitizer located just outside the entrance. Took me a while to figure out why, but then I realized they were close to where the carts are stacked. They had simlar units at the entrance and exit of the buffet on the last cruise I took. A few months ago I got a mailer from a company that brings their mobile cleaning unit to your house and washes your trash bins for a double digit cost per. They throw them in one end and they come out the other end ready to eat from.

I'm as germ phobic as the next guy, but I sometimes wonder whether we're slowly weakening the gene pool. I heard about an elemetary school that hast stopped allowing PB&J sandwiches because too many kids are allergic to peanuts - never bumped up against anything like that when I was a kid.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

LoneWolf said:


> This is similar to the subplot of a Stephen King book that I read years ago. One of the characters had a very elaborate ruse that included dressing as a prosperous businessman, going to his leased but vacant office every day, changing into his Blind Veteran drag, sneaking out of his office, panhandling for the next 8 hours, and then reversing the process. Art imitating life, or vice-versa?


There's also "The Man With the Twisted Lip," a Sherlock Holmes story about a man who went undercover as a beggar and found it to be so incredibly profitable that he married, had children, and built a beautiful country estate while spending his days in makeup and rags. His wife never knew his secret, so when she thought she saw him (dressed as himself) and then couldn't find anything but his clothes, she engaged Mr. Holmes to investigate his disappearance.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

Kav said:


> You haven't heard?
> In California the newest innovation are shopping cart wash stations @ $20,000 a unit. This is to sanitize for all those nasty virus, bactteria and otehr critters 3 y/o tiffany can pickup while mumsey buys the Perrier and organic BBQ chips.


I've stopped putting groceries in the little basket that doubles as a child seat. How many diapers, in various stages of dirtiness, were plopped down there since the last time it was cleaned?


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Miket61 said:


> I've stopped putting groceries in the little basket that doubles as a child seat. How many diapers, in various stages of dirtiness, were plopped down there since the last time it was cleaned?


Those are the wagons with the green baby seats attached to it,Those are more disgusting cause people leave paper and crap and flyers in them,no one gives a hoot about them cause they are the ones that are hardly used.


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## Miket61 (Mar 1, 2008)

Howard said:


> Those are the wagons with the green baby seats attached to it,Those are more disgusting cause people leave paper and crap and flyers in them,no one gives a hoot about them cause they are the ones that are hardly used.


I just mean the folding shelf near the handle of a standard cart, the one with plastic flap that blocks what could be leg holes.

Here in Atlanta the kiddie carts are so obnoxiously large that it's almost impossible to get around the aisle when one is there; some of them are wide enough for two children, or long enough to be a tandem. They often have racecar themes or look like those classic red and yellow plastic toy cars that kids used to ride around in.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

> Here in Atlanta the kiddie carts are so obnoxiously large that it's almost impossible to get around the aisle when one is there; some of them are wide enough for two children, or long enough to be a tandem. They often have racecar themes or look like those classic red and yellow plastic toy cars that kids used to ride around in.


the baby carts Pathmark has can only fit one child and the other space is used for groceries.


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## MichaelS (Nov 14, 2005)

LoneWolf said:


> This is similar to the subplot of a Stephen King book that I read years ago. One of the characters had a very elaborate ruse that included dressing as a prosperous businessman, going to his leased but vacant office every day, changing into his Blind Veteran drag, sneaking out of his office, panhandling for the next 8 hours, and then reversing the process. Art imitating life, or vice-versa?
> 
> At the Pavilions near my house they have little dispensers of hand sanitizer located just outside the entrance. Took me a while to figure out why, but then I realized they were close to where the carts are stacked. They had simlar units at the entrance and exit of the buffet on the last cruise I took. A few months ago I got a mailer from a company that brings their mobile cleaning unit to your house and washes your trash bins for a double digit cost per. They throw them in one end and they come out the other end ready to eat from.
> 
> I'm as germ phobic as the next guy, but I sometimes wonder whether we're slowly weakening the gene pool. I heard about an elemetary school that hast stopped allowing PB&J sandwiches because too many kids are allergic to peanuts - never bumped up against anything like that when I was a kid.


There is a lot of work starting right now to assess the environmental and human health effects of "antibacterial' soaps and sanitizers. The antibacterial soaps appear to be really bad because they help create resistant bacteria, sewage treatment systems can not at this time treat the waste to remove anti bacterial chemicals that are then released to the environment when the clean waste water is discharged, this allows other bacteria to be exposed and affected potentially creating more resistant bacteria, AND, being anti bacterial, do not work to prevent the colds or flu anxious mother and fathers are worried about as these are caused by viruses.

Another potentially huge issue is that they work to prevent us from building up a natural tolerance/resistance to bacteria.

The hand sanitizers may not be as bad especially the ones related to hydrogen peroxide (as these don't persist as long in the environment) but there are still issues with these in the environment and the effect on our ability to develop resistance to colds etc.

Concerns about these issues (and pharmaceuticals in the environment) are growing rapidly and hopefully people will become more aware and quit buying the anti bacterial soaps etc (we don't have any in my house). Besides, the studies being done show that plain old washing with regular soap and water does just as good of a job as antibacterial soaps and sanitizers.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

> The hand sanitizers may not be as bad especially the ones related to hydrogen peroxide (as these don't persist as long in the environment) but there are still issues with these in the environment and the effect on our ability to develop resistance to colds etc.


Could they make sanitizers for the carts cause they're very filthy every single day I come to work but the problem is sometimes it doesn't work,carts are always going to be dirty because the wagons are going to be outside all the time,customers are going to complain no matter what.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

I finally passed 15K and I have been here 15 years, now that's incredible!


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## Oldsarge (Feb 20, 2011)

My late wife was a clinical bacteriologist and you never saw her using hand sanitizers in the store for the very reasons MichaelS point out. Don't encourage the bacteria!


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## Dhaller (Jan 20, 2008)

Oldsarge said:


> My late wife was a clinical bacteriologist and you never saw her using hand sanitizers in the store for the very reasons MichaelS point out. Don't encourage the bacteria!


Having worked in a multitude of hazardous environments - microbiological, radioactive, chemical, and extreme climates - it was organic synthesis work that had me washing my hands all the time.

Nothing is quite as insidious as just good, old-fashioned chemical poisoning.

DH


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## Shaver (May 2, 2012)

Howard said:


> I finally passed 15K and I have been here 15 years, now that's incredible!


Congratulations Howard!

Revel in your well deserved status as a menswear forum legend, beloved AAAC participant, and provider of innumerable smiles.

Here's to the next 15 years. :beer:


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Oldsarge said:


> My late wife was a clinical bacteriologist and you never saw her using hand sanitizers in the store for the very reasons MichaelS point out. Don't encourage the bacteria!


They have hand sanitizer machines in Stop N Shop, people barely use them.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Dhaller said:


> Having worked in a multitude of hazardous environments - microbiological, radioactive, chemical, and extreme climates - it was organic synthesis work that had me washing my hands all the time.
> 
> Nothing is quite as insidious as just good, old-fashioned chemical poisoning.
> 
> DH


You always have to wash hands almost all the time, you don't know what things people have touched and so it's a must to do so. And it's quite OK to be a bit OCD for hand washing, we all have it.


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

Shaver said:


> Congratulations Howard!
> 
> Revel in your well deserved status as a menswear forum legend, beloved AAAC participant, and provider of innumerable smiles.
> 
> Here's to the next 15 years. :beer:


Thanks Shaver.


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