It Came in the Mail

An occasional look at products the travel industry insists we need.

WHAT: The Disposable Clean Diner, a portable germ barrier for restaurant highchairs.

AIMED AT: Parents who see danger everywhere.

HOW MUCH:$7.99 for a pack of three.

BUT DOES IT WORK? This is a product for the parent who has everything, particularly a bad case of germ paranoia and plenty of spare time to make sure that Baby's environment is obsessively sterile. The Disposable Clean Diner is a roomy sheet of soft plastic you drape over the seat and arms of a highchair before your little guy climbs in, puts on his rubber gloves and begins to eat his individually wrapped green peas. Just kidding.

In fairness, the thing works completely as advertised. It's well designed and neatly made, with leg holes and various Velcro straps and buckles to keep it place. It fit nicely on my son's highchair and did an admirable job of catching the 75 percent of his dinner that invariably bypassed his mouth, which I appreciated at cleanup time.

And did it protect him from those meanie germs? I guess so (although the sheet doesn't cover the actual food tray, presumably a regular bacterial Garden of Eden). But since his habit on being released from a highchair is to stick the nearest shoe in his mouth or to lick the dog's paw, a germ barrier like this one seems, paradoxically, like inadequate overkill.

-- Steve Hendrix

The Disposable Clean Diner is available from the company's Web site,http://www.cleanshopper.com, where you can also find shopping cart liners and other germ-thwarting products. Many Whole Foods markets carry some of the line.