Dear Kittenpants,
I used to be the manager of the Barnes & Noble Cafe in Westport, CT...I'll get right to the point: One busy Tuesday a couple months ago, we [ran] out of milk. I make a quick run to Stop and Shop and fill my arms up with 1/2 gallon milk containers. After checking out,, I filled up 3 or 4 bags and started lugging them away, when the cashier said,

"There's a buggy over there."
"I'm sorry?" I said, confused.
"There's a buggy right over there."
"There's...a buggy? Over there?"

I shook my head, shrugged my shoulders. What was she trying to tell me? What was, "there's a buggy over there" supposed to mean? Are we speaking the same language? Is she referring to a shopping cart? What, she's trying to help me? She calls the shopping cart a buggy?

"I'm sorry...I don't...Look, I gotta go."

When I got back to the cafe, I told a coworker about my harrowing experience.

"The woman at the grocery store called the shopping cart a buggy."

"Oh yeah? My mom calls them buggies."

Kittenpants, do you call shopping carts buggies? Maybe if I could sit down in the thing and drive it around the store, I would understand, but to Hell with this "buggy" trend. Until they have cute little car horns on them, beep beep, and little headlights and a big smile for a bumper, "shopping cart" is the funnest name it should get.

Sincerely,
Bugged Shopper

Dear Bugged Shopper:
I always get confused and call the shopping cart a "basket".  If you saw me in the store, standing next to a basket and a cart, looking scared and crying my eyes out, would you laugh at me?

Keep in mind that "buggy" does refer to something on wheels, which a person pushes around (like a baby buggy) and so the correlation is somewhat fair.  It is annoying though. In college I worked at a truck stop and people would come in to buy "lottery coupons". I don't why they called them "coupons", but I promise you they weren't saving any money.

I guess we should try to be understanding of other people's idiosyncrasies of language. Communication is key. Next time, perhaps the conversation could go something like this:

Cashier: "There's a buggy over there"
You: "I'm sorry? a WHAT?"
Cashier: "There's a buggy over there."
You: "Dear lady, thank you for your assistance. But if you are referring to that shopping cart in the corner, I suggest that you learn to use the correct terms for objects in your own place of business, you ignorant cunk. Have a delightful afternoon."

Make sure when you say that last part that you are talking through your teeth, like Thurston Howell, III.