Hello Trolley!

Our washing machine had broken down. We decided to wait for a week until Mum and Dad were visiting from Griffith. Dad is good with those sorts of problems. Once they arrived, however, the washing machine (who is an appliance of an unaccommodating personality) promptly refused to be broken. John put a load through, and the machine produced such a clean wash, it made John and I look like a pair of liars. The washing machine continued to produce clean washes, right up to the point Mum and Dad were an hour into their trip back to Griffith.

Once this point of no return was reached, no amount of coaxing, begging, pleading or frantically unplugging and re-plugging the machine to the wall produced any results whatsoever. Neither of us swear, so we couldn’t try that particular encouragement of our mulish appliance.

“You must have overloaded it,” said John. “I understand it’s a temptation, but it unbalances the drum. Leave it for a bit and it might come right.”

But it didn’t. Unfortunately for John, I have a slightly superstitious bent and as he had managed to get it to work the previous week, I began to mentally invest him with magical powers.

“John, couldn’t you please just push the button on the washing machine? It seems to work for you.”

John doesn’t have a superstitious bone in his body, but he is a very kind brother, so sighing at my lack of scientific understanding, he wandered off to the garage. He returned with a level. He emerged from the laundry about an hour later, certain that the machine had an illness more severe than any home remedy could cure. A professional would need to be called in.

In the meantime, we now had a very huge and horrible mountain range of unclean washing spanning our laundry wall. There was only one thing for it. I was going to have to go to the local laundromat. The fact we lived across the road from the train station meant that we didn’t require a car. Until now, that is. There was too much washing for me to carry.

But this is Australia and Australia has a certain quirk that I have encountered nowhere else. Many Australians push their groceries home in a supermarket trolley. Then they stick the trolley out on the side of the road (or sometimes IN the road) to be collected. And the supermarkets oblige them in this. About once a week a small blue tractor dragging a long snake of green trolleys behind it slides slowly around the streets of Sydney, collecting all the lost trolleys. There’s something vaguely biblical about all this ‘seeking and saving the lost’ approach.

Of course, not all trolleys are retrievable. The beauty of the local river walk is somewhat marred by an upturned trolley that someone decided to hurl into the waters. It’s a tidal river and when the tide draws out, more trolley emerges to view, festooned with a few sad ribbons of duckweed. Occasionally, a heron perches gracefully on the handle.

It seemed about time I availed myself to this perk of living in Australia. Not that I would fling the thing out on the road or into the river when I was done with it. As much as I admired the practicality of this mode of trolley return, my New Zealand sensibilities deemed it a bit rude. I would return my trolley to the trolley bey like the good little, obedient, kiwi that I was.

I did feel somewhat guilty as I set out in the bright morning sun to collect my trolley. I knew the supermarket didn’t provide its trolleys for laundry and I worried about collecting a trolley and then marching in the opposite direction from the store. It turned out to be a false fear. Halfway to the supermarket I found a trolley of a virulent shade of green abandoned in a gutter. I promptly purloined it. It’s handle proudly informed me that I was pushing 74 reclaimed milk bottles and saving the planet.

The trolley behaved itself like a gentleman all the way home. It waited politely at the door as I piled it high with less than fragrant garments, towels, and sheets. The trolley continued to conduct itself in a courteous manner as I pushed it down the drive. It seemed to grasp that I found the whole situation embarrassing and wanted to stay as inconspicuous as possible. And the trolley cooperated with this desire, right until we made it out onto the main street. Then some sort of impish spirit seemed to get hold of that trolley. All of its wheels decided to go left. That would have got us into the gutter, and I protested by pulling back hard on the handle. The trolley responded by spinning me neatly around in a circle.

In vain did I lean to the right in an attempt to straighten up this roguish trolley. I didn’t have enough weight to counteract all its wheels whizzing to the left. It was a gutter dweller and it longed to return both itself and I to its native habitat. I thought bitterly of the pounds I had gained during covid. I had got rid of them with an increase in protein and a decrease in carbohydrates. Now I wished I’d just kept them on! They would have been useful in this current situation.

The trolley, feeling playful, swung me around for a second time. By now, it was clear we were dancing, and the trolley was leading. Suddenly, a tune from ‘The King and I,’ began to ring through my head.

Shall we dance? Shall we dance?

On a bright cloud of music, shall we fly?

Shall we dance?

Shall we then say goodnight and mean goodbye?

THAT had been romantic, well, maybe not COMPLETELY romantic considering that the guy was already married to about five hundred other women, but it was still more romantic than THIS, I thought crossly, as the trolley suddenly rejected the notion of taking me home to meet all his family in the gutter (a crushed beer can, a water damaged flyer and a used tissue), and whisked me towards a sheet glass window.

Only a rather painful jerk of my wrists saved me from smashing headfirst through the glass façade of the local jewellery store. An act, had it occurred, that I felt sure would have catapulted me to fame (and probably jail) on the front page of the local newspaper.

It was a relief to finally arrive at the laundromat. Freed from both the trolley and my dirty laundry, I browsed the surrounding mall for forty-five minutes and collected two large plain sunhats for ten dollars each at one of those interesting stores that seems to sell everything. They were a nice shape, and I was confident that by the time I had them properly trimmed, no one would guess that they had only cost me ten dollars each. Except anyone reading this blog, of course. You’ll know!

Then I collected my washing and wheeled it home. The damp washing was heavier than the dirty, dry stuff  and the trolley behaved in a more weighty, responsible manner on the way home. I hung out my washing, returned the trolley to the trolley bey and imagined for a moment that it was looking sulkily at the nearby gutter. ‘Cheer up,’ I muttered. ‘I’m sure SOMEONE will put you back where you long to be.

Then I pootled home and had a cup of tea. It occurred to me that I had just had a very authentic Sydney experience. And although I don’t really think any Australian travel brochure is going to list dealing with roguish supermarket trolleys along side the attractions of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera house, perhaps they should. Because it seems to me that it’s as quintessentially Aussie  as a kangaroo burger or a marmite sandwich!