08 September 2007
They are everywhere. They are the largest selling four-wheel vehicles in the world. They come in seemingly all states - orphaned, crippled, ugly and sometimes even foul smelling. They can often be found sun bathing or grazing out on the open fields. They abide by Murphy's Law. You never see one when you need one, and you see scores of them queued up every time you are headed for a different kind of retail therapy.
"They" are the shopping trolleys or shopping carts that are supplied by supermarkets for customers' advantage. They are often found abandoned in parking lots and thoroughfares by oh-so considerate shoppers.
Some of these very same shopaholics not only have a passion for shopping but for shopping trolleys as well. They cart the trolleys home along with the goodies only to abandon them in private parking lots or next to the elevators in their buildings.
Even my building watchman is partial to them. He uses a rickety one to stack old newspapers and a handsome branded one (straight from a supermarket) to deliver bottled water, etc, to every tenant's doorsteps. It's a profitable business model especially since he is tipped handsomely for his help every time.
These shopping trolleys have a bad habit of turning up at corners where they least belong. If you do a Wikipedia search for "shopping trolley", you are likely to stumble upon an image of a shopping trolley lying abandoned on the ocean floor. Last I knew nobody had opened a supermarket on the seabed... not yet. So, your guess is as good as mine as to how it landed there.
Attractive
Shopping carts are definitely worth their weight (those who take them home would second me heartily). Not only are they a Godsend inside a supermarket, these multi-utility vehicles are useful even outside their natural habitat.
I have not been able to pinpoint exactly what it is about these trolleys that make s them so attractive. No one is questioning their utility, but how come there is such a massive fan following that people are ready to be caught red handed with a "borrowed" shopping trolley in broad daylight?
I have discovered that trolley-lifters or trolley borrowers (for want of a better term) have a liking for a special brand of shopping trolley in this part of the world. These trolleys- coloured in green and yellow - officially belong to a specific supermarket chain. They seem to be the hot favourite among the 'borrowed' or 'lost' trolleys in Dubai.
You can spot one of them everywhere. Even in my office neighbourhood. I have often watched some housekeeping boys making use of not one but several green and yellow trolleys to dump their garbage from the office premises to the bin parked outside. I wonder how they managed to "domesticate" multiple trolleys, that too from the same supermarket chain. And let me inform you that there are no supermarkets nearby, leave alone the one to which these trolleys actually belong to.
I wonder what's the modus operandi. People from all walks of like use them innovatively. This morning I saw some gardeners loading seeds and saplings on a shopping trolley. Construction workers use them as temporary roadblocks; children take guard in front of abandoned ones while playing cricket.
"Borrowing" shopping trolleys on a permanent basis seems to be a common enough phenomenon. But when I spied upon a green and yellow trolley queued up innocently in a sea of red and white trolleys in my neighbourhood mum-and-pop supermarket, my eyes certainly popped out. Using borrowed trolleys for personal gain I can still comprehend, but how can one supermarket openly use another's trolley?
So, are trolley-lifters brand conscious? There are probably two schools of thought. One group might be conscious of what brand they use (or misuse), while another group might prefer to make use of anonymous ones. The jury is certainly out on that one.
Closer home, ever since my curiosity got the better of me and I showed an interest in my watchman's precious trolley and its 'source', he has been sending me feelers - through my maid of course - on whether I would like him to procure one for my exclusive use since I always come home laden with yellow and green grocery bags. God forbid!
By Mily Chakrabarty
Gulf News 2007. All rights reserved.
