Dear Humans,

As representatives of the Guild of the Wheeled Devices for the Enhancement of the Consumer Experience, sometimes slightly offensively and certainly inaccurately referred to in slang parlance as ‘shopping trolleys’ we wish to register a complaint with your species. The abuse has gone far enough and must stop immediately. Our place in the systems you insist on operating is quiet clear.

When we went into collaboration with your species to assist you in gathering of food and other helpful items in your many places of commerce, it was with understanding that we would remain on these premises. We understand that this service would entail – brief – diversions away from the neat colony areas (or in, a better class of establishment, the warmth of the interior) in front of the places off commerce (where we could be collected for the deposit of one British pound).

But the points here are that first, this trip should be brief, and second, we should be returned. One pound is not a purchase price. Nor is it a delivery charge to your home address (or bushes near your home address). It seems that unfortunately many of you seem to have misunderstood this process. You are not supposed to push us home and then leave us abandoned on footpaths or in a ditch. Worse, sometimes you try and hide your crime by pushing us into canals, ponds and other unpleasant expanses of water, ending our natural life and leaving us as eyesores to be stared at by curious ducks.

Even in St Albans.

This is just not on.

We appreciate that sometimes things in our working relationship are not always perfect. For example, the long standing problem of directional issues – we appreciate that sometimes the hard use that our members are put through does result in a the ‘trolley’ not going in the direction intended (or indeed refusing to move at all in any direction). But if you had to go through the abuse that most of the Guild undergoes every day from shoppers (and worse, the offspring of shoppers) you too might get a little wonky on your wheels.

But there is no excuse for being upturned in murky water, our wheels pathetically exposed, stolen and then abandoned simply because you cannot be bothered to return us.

We sincerely hope that this missive will help improve relationships by drawing attention to the plight of our members.

Yours, Grand Master of the Guild of the Wheeled Devices for the Enhancement of the Consumer Experience