Dust, danger, and the TV trolley

If you’ve ever owned a TV in Pakistan, you might have also owned/encountered/been told to dust a TV trolley. 

What is a TV trolley? It is the fancier iteration of the stationary shelved TV ‘rack’ and the wood glass-fronted cabinet to place the TV on. But the TV trolley was really the same cabinet but on wheels. It held the VCR, the VCR ‘cleaner’ tape – a scam if there ever was one – the protective plastic cover for the VCR, and the selection of video cassettes you were lucky enough to own / “forgot” to return to the video rental shop, and the TV rested atop it this edifice. Despite the wheels, the TV – and the trolley – was/is never really mobile and is usually restricted to one vantage viewing point, only ever moving if you moved house (revealing the rusty wheels’ marks on the floor) or when the TV had to be sent off for repairs (99% of the time there’s always something wrong with the ‘tube’.)

TV trolleys, as it turns out, are also dangerous. According to this study, of the 55 kids taken to a Karachi hospital ER because of injuries caused by falling objects – 40% were injured by TV trolleys (!!!). 71.4% of the 55 were admitted to the ICU, and the most common injuries were to the upper limb and head -- leading the researchers to conclude that injuries caused by falling TV trolleys were an important home safety issue in Pakistan.

(Even though I’ve never owned a flat screen and abhor TV trolleys I have been unable to KonMari them out of the house. I have tried. They remain, rusty wheels and all.)