If I were ever given the opportunity to clear up a universal mystery - to have the explanation for just one paranormal phenomena revealed – my choice would undoubtedly be;

‘Do I pick the trolley or does the trolley pick me?’

I visit  the supermarket not more than once or twice a year - yet somehow, I always manage to acquire the gimp trolley. I push the contraption straight and it drags me left, so in order to compensate, I push it to the right – and it actually goes right… to the extreme!  Apparently controlled by the same belligerent spirit that possesses my offspring, the more effort that I that apply in order to keep the trolley in straight line; the more forcibly it fights to deviate. The exertion required to move the thing forwards in any fashion, requires a wrist and shoulder twisting contortion that rapidly induces chronic muscle spasms in the side accompanied by screaming lower-back pain.

Not today though; for I have been bossed by a wire basket-on-wheels for the very last time! Today I am the ‘which Trolley Finder General!’ and survey the fleet of 400 trolleys through narrowed eyes. I am determined to outwit fate, so I deliberately ignore my instinctive first choice, consciously selecting a trolley that I would not have normally chosen.

I quickly learn that one man’s stand against the forces of the universe is futile… this trolley is just as haunted as ever. Cursing my own foolish optimism and accepting the inevitability of it all - I take a dog-leg line into the shop, tacking like a sloop in the Solent up the fresh vegetable aisle. 

I love supermarket fruit ‘n’ veg - you only have to buy one pesticide to get the other three free! It’s a good deal; my immune system has been boosted to the point that I no longer get the flu and could survive a mild spat of biological warfare. My theory is that this governmental defence initative will eventually negate the need for costly protective-clothing, shelters, antidotal pharmaceuticals and decontamination units.

‘Just a few bits ‘n’ bobs for the Xmas-Holiday;’ that was the mission that I’d foolishly accepted, and now that I’m in-country; I need to consult my orders, pausing my warped progress in order to consult the neatly folded battle-plan of a shopping-list that my wife had so carefully complied. It all looks nice and simple - I predict the troops will be home for Christmas.

The bitch! …she knows the layout of this shop intimately and has skilfully crafted the order in which the requirements are listed so that each consecutive item is located at furthest possible point in the store from the next on the list. I’m only three items in – and have already wrestled the supernaturally charged trolley back and forth across the vast expanse of the shop twice.  I’d wondered about the skewed smirk on her face as I left… at the time I’d just put it down to her bitter and twisted nature contorting a face already blessed with a ‘scorn as the norm’ expression.

Fourteen different sorts of loaf… and when I finally locate the specific type listed as a requirement; I find that a bread-squeezer lady is already there – I thought she would be, for they are well organised and obviously operate a shift pattern. Watching her work, I can’t help but be grudgingly impressed - but no wonder that so many old Women suffer from arthritis in their hands. I wait patiently behind her as she squeezes every single loaf in turn – but chooses none. Eventually she moves off – probably to tap on the melons, poke the cheese or maybe meet up with the individual-apple-turner woman for some potato evaluation.

I’m franticly trying to find an un-molested loaf… when it happens! The pain!...  The hurt comprises of an enraging fusion of surprise, annoyance and infuriation as a trolley runs agonisingly up the back of my legs – From deep within a cloud of swirling red-mist I swing around, hoping to encounter a skinny, mild-mannered male that I can intimidate. My passion is thwarted as I discover the offender to be a ninety-year old hooligan in a blue-rinse wig. Her carer is off having a coffee and she wants to buy a bun – so she is busily running her trolley up the back of everyone’s Achilles until she gets one. The aisle behind me is littered with ham-strung victims all limping along sobbing gently – I join in. I’ve had it – and having gotten most of what I was sent to get, I am quite prepared to lie, saying that they were sold-out of everything else – My mood lightens as I make for the check-out, it’s the last lap… and I get to do some lying.