Shopping trolley - private or public place?

She and I are laughing about the gender difference in shopping - women tend to be discreet in their shopping, slipping the hair dye/tampons/chocolate beneath the bag of spinach and loaves of bread. Women, I don't think, stare as much at others shopping. He quips "When a man buys dog food and pasta shells, you know what's for dinner" Oh, the habits of male singledom should be a line not transgressed.

So, would you ever put your hand in someone else's shopping trolley? It's the kind of thing that happens by accident, all very embarrassing - but there's that shock moment when you think - is that my shopping?!!! Is the shopping trolley a private space in the public arena - the same mentality of the car-owner, who views his car with the same fondness (or maybe more) as his living room and his sofa. Or, her sofa. And drives around in his personal living-room, and views the ownership of whatever bit of road he happens to be occupying as his personal space too.

Our male friend resumed that men tend to buy food with petrol - bad stuff, like pork pies and crisps...Ginsters!!! The infidelity of a Ginsters Pasty, the incriminating flakes of pastry falling between the legs, to be brushed away hurriedly at the traffic lights... but that wasn't what we were talking about, really. It was Hirsts £50m disco ball www.guardian.co.uk/artblog/hirst, or "For The Love of God", 2007,  the Rock Star of all Vanitas, the ultimate in consumerism, which was where the coversation had started - this genre of reminding us that we can't take it with us to the next life. The question here on this mortal earth is, after Hirsts statement of the ultimate power to buy heaven on earth, where do we go from here? He has achieved the immortal. 

It certainly gives those road-hogging sods another view of ownership, and indeed, a marvelous transgression of discretion to show that display of wealth: to be disgusting, unfair, glamorous, powerful, wasteful, idiotic or idyllic... but for it to be a consumable in the open market gives it the appearance that it could be attainable. Unimaginable for the bloke driving around in his living room, and he can stick to the disco ball air freshener hanging from his rear-view.