You can tell a lot about a person by the way they handle a supermarket trolley. I, for instance, always choose the one with the wonky wheel and the damp seat, which, as I'm sure my parents would be the first to point out, goes a long to explaining my choice of boyfriends down the years.

As other people sail serenely down the aisles, calmly fulfilling their shopping needs, I crash from one counter to another, grabbing things I don't need, ignoring everything that will do me good and spending money I don't have. Again, a pretty accurate reflection of my life so far.

Women tend to be far more assertive with their trolleys than men. While men wander around the supermarket, looking lost and uncomfortable, picking up bags of this and tins of that with quizzical looks on their faces, women march purposefully from aisle to aisle, thrusting their trolleys before them like modern day Boudiccas (the artist formerly known as Boadicea) with wonky-wheeled chariots. Women with children are the most assertive of the bunch (for "assertive" read "scary"). You get in our way and we will mow you down!

Some of you may mistakenly believe that shopping is a mildly diverting chore for us mums; something for us fluffy old muddleheads to do between feeds. But it is nothing of the sort. It is, quite frankly, a military manoeuvre.

Unfortunately for us it is a military manoeuvre in which the soldiers are very small and won't do as they are told.

Once you have actually managed to squash them into the trolley seat - a task that would test the skills of a Krypton Factor finalist - you have to feed them with breadsticks, rattle your car keys in a mildly amusing fashion and sing various nursery rhymes with all the necessary arm movements and facial contortions to stop them screaming the shop to the ground. It's a wonder you don't find more mums necking back the Baileys in the booze aisle.

Women with kids like to speed round the supermarket like Michael Schumacher, but older people, who generally come in a pair, one with a jaunty little hat and the other with a handbag the size of Gibraltar, like to linger over their buys.

I have, to my great shame, tutted, sighed and muttered obscenities under my breath while stuck in a trolley traffic jam behind an elderly couple choosing grapes (one at a time!) or wondering aloud and at length about the pros and cons of processed peas.

Then of course there are those who are quite literally off their trolley. They drag their shopping sideways behind them up and down the aisles, felling old folk and children with a simple flick of the wrist (if, that is, they have managed to free their wrist from their designer straightjacket - brushed silver buckles with gold lam trim).

Their trolley is inevitably filled with soup (they are not allowed to handle anything more dangerous than a spoon), fruit pastilles (the pretty colours distract them long enough for "nursey" to give them their medication) and Go Cat (all mad people have cats, it's part of loony law, and the little crunchy feline treats make perfect party nibbles for their invisible friends).

My only advice if you come across one of these poor devils in the cumquat and cocoa aisle is to keep your head down and ignore any attempt at conversation. Don't be tempted to answer their queries out of politeness.

A simple "hello" will result in them following you round the rest of the store with photographs of their pet stone, Sharon. While a full-on "hello, how are the cumquats today?" will have them moving in with you and telling everybody they are your long-lost brother, returned at last by the aliens after years of fruitless testing.

And don't be fooled if they don't actually have a trolley with them. Basket cases are just as bad.

Updated: 09:13 Tuesday, October 14, 2003