Jul 02 2009
Motoring: Pros and cons of the shopping trolley as an urban runaround
Forget Top Gear, with its costly supercar roadtests and exotic location filming - this is real life. In the real world, we cannot afford such luxuries as expensive cars, or even televisions.
Here at Retro Yakking we like to think ourselves in touch with the average man who works very hard for little money. He wants to pee every penny of it up the wall of a weekend, so it goes without saying that his budget for a car falls ever so slightly short of the price of a Bugatti Veyron.
The supermarket trolley is an ideal solution, suiting the common man perfectly with its price tag of £0. When combined with a long stick (or maybe two if you’re slightly more upmarket) to act as a braking system, the shopping trolley is also a reliable, quick and economical choice for the discerning idiot.
Should the vehicle break down, there’s no need to worry about repairing it - just down the road is another supermarket, chock full of fresh sets of wheels ripe for pinching.
Simply dump your old trolley in the local pond or canal along with the other broken ones.
Best of all, when parked next to a Ford Escort or Suzuki Swift, nobody would even consider stealing your ride.
That is, unless they read this article, in which case you’d better invest in a padlock. Or not, especially if you’ve parked in a supermarket car park.
There is also a wide range of options available for the supermarket trolley driver, from the Tesco locked wheel model to the Marks and Spencer coin operated cart at the high end of the scale. The ones with convertible child seats are ideal for taking the kids to school, and the ones with the extra compartment for bottles at the front are excellent for, erm, grocery shopping.
Typical used trolley lot.
So if you can see past the poor handling, are willing to be run over twice a week and can withstand the discomfort of a handle up your bottom, then the supermarket trolley might just be the vehicle for you. Just remember to avoid incensed security guards when ‘acquiring’ your vehicle and everything will be fine.
