Shopping-trolley rage *
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
(* a favourite column)
Shopping-trolley rage: the silent scourge of our supermarket
aisles.
Oh, stop giggling.
I have a friend who, speaking to me on the grounds of anonymity
(right next to the grounds of the local park), confesses to turning into a spawn of Beelzebub the
moment her handbag hits the trolley rack and her manicured pink nails curl
around the cold steel beast.
To keep her identity secret, I asked her to sit in a darkened
room
and to speak sloooowly like a record on the wrong speed, so
fellow
shoppers cannot identify her next Saturday morning.
Additionally, I
told her to hold up to her face a plastic card of colored
squares
which she could shake constantly to pixilate her image. This may
seem like overkill but, trust me, the polaroids alone will be
worth it.
This trolley rager is Kate Regina Morris *, aged 42.
(* Her real name. Oh. Oops.)
Kate snapped, after one day of trolley hell too many. Her
revenge
against a woman constantly stopping dead in front of her was to
do
what everyone secretly dreams of but no sane person not
under the
influence of red cordial actually does: deliberately ram her
trolley at high
speed.
“I was balancing between trying to be polite, being a decent
human
being but I was getting white with anger as I kept having to slam on
the brakes,” Kate told me.
“I decided this woman did not deserve to live. My trolley was
laden
and hard to turn, so the next time, and there was a next
time, I
decided there was only one way to get out of it. I backed up,
took
careful aim and I let my trolley fly.
“Well, if I do say so myself, it was a direct hit. Magnificent.
It was spectacular. You should have heard the noise.
“She sort of turned around and looked at me as her trolley went
flying. I had this maniacal look in my eye. She said nothing. Nothing!
She did not even know what she had done – no understanding. Oh, but it gave me
so much pleasure. It paid back everything that happened before and paid back 20
years of pent-up trolley frustration. This was my moment.”
Kate is not alone. This social affliction first officially came
to
light in Britain, where a disagreement over a man cutting in
front
of woman in the checkout line led to her smashing a bottle of
wine over
his head and then being jailed for four months.
I know what you're thinking: yes, it is a pity about the
wine.
Another English store reported that a fight between two men had
also
broken out over trolley etiquette. Their wives then joined in
and it
became a free-for-all - the checkout operators still calmly
putting
their groceries through.
Kate was askance at this. Without a hint of irony, she sighed:
“Some people should have some sort of test on their mentality.”
There was but one solution to counter trolley rage, Kate
informed
me. Shopping trolley
road rules.
“Keep left. Don't park
in the middle. Don't overtake on corners,” she declared.
“People should be licensed to drive the shopping trolley - I
totally feel some need training urgently,” she sternly added, tongue firmly in
cheek.
“There should be no strollers allowed and a
one-person-per-trolley rule should be adopted. Last, 10 items or less - ha!
What a myth. Teach people (in express queues) to count. With force if
necessary.”
Well why stop there? Speed humps could be a necessity, radar
guns
and RBT-unit (Random Boorish Trolley-driver) testing should be
set up.
And then, and only then, peace at last may reign between the
Vegemite
and lavatory rolls.
FOOTNOTE: Fear not, quivering readers. Kate now shops
interstate.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr &
The Advertiser, 20 OCT 1998