The Trolley

Nope, not the trolley car you might be thinking you rode when you visited San Francisco. I'm referring to a shopping cart, which is commonly known as a "trolley" in Oz. When we first arrived, we discovered that in order to use a trolley for your grocery shopping, you had to insert a $1 or $2 coin. Of course we never seemed to have any coins, and when we did, I was embarrassed taking so long figuring out how to properly insert the coin into the trolley in order to obtain the cart. Since then, I've learned to carry $1 and $2 coins and I found a sign explaining the directions of "renting" the trolley, so if we are intending to purchase a large amount of groceries, I use a trolley.

Aldi is a fantastic place to shop for groceries. They also sell random things like clothes dryers, tools, office furniture, and bike shorts. It's always fun to see what the "specials" are in their circulars.

You might wonder why it costs money to use a shopping cart, and we are still wondering the same thing ourselves. We assume that the purpose is to cut down on people stealing trolleys, but Erik and I frequently see abandoned trolleys in parking lots and sometimes even in our neighborhood. We tend to believe that if someone wants to steal a shopping cart, a $1 or $2 coin being returned is not going to stop them from running away with the trolley. Nevertheless, nearly every grocery store and other stores like Target, Big W (similar to WalMart), Bunnings (like a Home Depot/Lowes), require you to deposit money in order to use their trolleys.

Trolleys on lockdown

The term trolley is also used to refer to a basket-type rolling device that many people take to the market in order to collect fruits and veggies. The concept actually has great merit, as carrying produce on your back or in bags gets heavy quickly. If we did more shopping without a car, I would have already purchased a shopping trolley for myself!