Grocery bag containment tip

[markeb01]

Here’s a tip some may find helpful. I’ve never been very fond of taking the truck to the grocery store, loading everything in the back, and getting home to discover a jar of mayonnaise, jelly, or bottle of milk went flying across the bed. I’ve tried a variety of cargo restraints both when I had an open bed and a hard cover in place. Spider nets seemed too clumsy and straps or cargo nets never seemed to hold the items where they were convenient. Here’s a very simple method I stumbled upon to hold grocery bags right where I want them next to the tailgate.

Years ago I replaced every other fender bolt with a same size hardware store eyebolt. These required no holes to be drilled, and have proven immeasurably handy for tethering loads. Quite by accident I left a pair of long ball bungee cords in the eyebolt closest to the tailgate, on both sides of the bed. On the next trip to the store, it occurred to me to simply pass the bungee through the “handles” of the grocery bags and stretch the open end to the next eyebolt. It takes about 2 seconds to hook up or disconnect and holds everything in place in an upright position.

If you actually use your truck and don’t mind having a couple of eyebolts installed, it’s a very simple alternative to cleaning up splattered contents from the bed.

The photos aren’t very good, and the bed looks awful, but the pictures do tell the story. Here’s the passenger side of the bed showing the eyebolts:



Here are the ball bungees I just leave hanging in the eyebolts:



And here are grocery bags tethered to the bed wall. The bungees don’t show up real well being black against a black bed, but they stretch from the blue balls at the rear through the bag handles and loop over the forward eyebolt: