Forgetting Your Shopping Trolley Token Will Destroy Your Life

— A True Story

I park up at the store, and I’m ready to go. Only I’m not, because I’ve forgotten my shopping trolley token.

Fuck!

We’re midway through the first half of the 21st century, and yet you still need a token or a coin to get a shopping trolley.

Can anyone explain this? I can’t.

I’ve a family to feed. I’m not a sober vegan shopping for a bag of nuts and a pint of oat milk. I’m here for hardcore weight: cans, beer, milk, potatoes, and slabs of dead animal.

I need a trolley, not a basket. I need one of these.

But I don’t have one because it’s in my other jacket. I could use a €1 coin, but I don’t carry change. Who does?

I mean, what’s the problem here? Do they think people are going to steal them? Live in them? Carry shit around in them.

Maybe? But if they are, you’d think they’d be able to rustle up a Euro from somewhere.

‘Hey mate, I wanna nick one of those supermarket trolleys tonight, but I’ve only got 75¢. Can you help me out?’

Even if the thieves don’t have any money these days, they could use a ring-pull.

This is my secret weapon. Notice its shape and width. It’s the same as a token, and when it’s detached from the tin, it works perfectly.

True, you’ve got to scour the car park floor like a bum to find one. But someone might throw you a coin while you’re at it.

My other theory as to why supermarkets continue to irritate their customers like this is that it helps with logistics.

Instead of folk just leaving their trolleys in the middle of the car park, they take them back to retrieve their coin or token. If there was no incentive, they would leave them all over the place.

But this is bollocks. Why? Because people are pussies.

They don’t want to be the one beaten to pulp by some meathead who only stopped by for a protein shake. But who on his way out crashes his souped-up Mercedes into your abandoned trolley, and goes looking for the person who did it.

Do you want to be that person? No. Which is why everyone neatly returns them to their rightful place.

I can even prove this. There’s another supermarket near me where all the chains keeping the trolleys together have been smashed off. No one has used tokens or coins here for years. And guess what? At the end of the day, all the trolleys are neatly pushed together.

Point made!

So after failing to find a ring-pull on the floor, I give up and go into the store and grab two of the largest shopping baskets they have. These days they are on wheels, so it’s not the end of the world — but it’s close.

I could ask at the reception for another token, but they’ll never give me one. Not after last time when I made a scene covering the points I’ve mentioned above.

Instead, I sheepishly trundle on inside and rack up my baskets with beer and meat— I’ll come back for the other stuff next week— and head to the checkout.

‘Pay by card,’ I say to the cashier once it’s all through.

She nods at the sign above: Card Only Payments.

I smile, and coolly slide my hand into my jacket to find my wallet. But of course, it’s not there. It’s in my other jacket.

Fuck!

I tell her I’ll be back in an hour. ‘And keep the checkout clear. As this time, I’ll have a trolley!’