I might have finally hit upon something useful to do with
myself - Come up with PhD thesis subjects for perpetual students who can’t think
of one themselves. I know, right? How
much more useful to society could I be?
This brilliant idea came to me today as I was driving to
work and I noticed a new phenomenon.
Recently a giant, multinational, Swedish, flat-pack-furniture
retailer opened up on my route between home and work. I don’t want to give too
much away, but it rhymes with Ikea.
Anyway, what I have noticed is the gradual but uneven
migration of trolleys into the surrounding suburbs. I take many different
routes to and from work dependant on influences such as: Traffic. School Days. Angle of the sun. The
soreness of my back versus the number of speed-humps.
Boredom. Visions. Hallucinations. Revelation. Whether I want to turn left more
than right or vice-versa. Number of gear changes. Radio reception to small,
independent radio stations. Shopping needs. Parking direction coming into main
shopping strips. Needing to keep a check on the hoarders up the road from my
place. Whim. And some others that I can’t think of right now. Point being
though that I can take an almost limitless number of ways home and I get to
observe the suburbs that neighbour the furniture store in some detail.
These trolleys are spreading, but clumping. I observed
four in a heap in a street some distance away from the main car park. Someone
needs to track them somehow and observe what is going on. Not only would it be
an interesting exercise to compare it to other networks and natural migrations, I bet
there would be some advice there for future town planners and urban environment
designers. At the very least, the impoverished student-about-town would stand
to make a couple of extra bucks as “This month’s champion Trolley Tracker”. I understand
you can win nearly a hundred dollars for finding a few trolleys.
