It's that time of year - it's Christmas, we just got our bonus, we won a few hundred quid in the lottery, Aunt Flo left us something in her will, whatever.
We go to the home appliances hypermarket.
We see the plasma TV, dual CPU PC, fridge, whatever, of our dreams and, wonder of wonders, it's
on sale!
The helpful salespeople strap on disposable handles with twine, and lend us a handcart to get out to the street.
Now comes the quandary: how on earth do we get this thing home?
If we're lucky, we can hail a cab or we drove to the store in the first place.
But maybe we live in walking distance of the store. Or we want to go by public transport. Or perhaps we get a car home, but we still face half a block and long hallways before we are done.
We could simply lug the thing bodily, but it must weigh half a ton, and we collectively put our backs out the last two times we tried this.
So, at the cash register, for some $2-5 (£1-3 UK), we purchase some disposable wheels. A handtruck reduced to the bare essentials and constructed entirely from recycled (and recyclable) materials.
This little but strong pair of wheels bears an L-plate that can be strapped to the bottom of the crate with the afore-mentioned twine.
Now, we can simply wheel our latest acquistion home, to the subway, to the waiting car, wherever.
And when we're done, we can stow it for our next shopping trip, or toss it, knowing we have are not harming either the Earth or our backs.
[See illustration. In practice, making the L-plate out of tubular steel or aluminium would be more practical and allow the twine to be tied to the frame, but that's somewhat beyond my drawing skills.]