Free-conomics*

*This lesson comes to you free of charge.

Spar, the "hypermarket" on Bannerghatta Road, just redid their entire store layout. The claim to have created "Worlds" in the store: one for home, one for groceries and whatnot. They've mainly shooed out all the underperforming brand stores from their premises, and spread out their wares so that there is no 3-hour trolley traffic jam in the aisles. For which I am very grateful, especially since I was always an innocent victim of the trolley jam.

The supermarket trolley is the most devious marketing ploy ever dreamt up by retailers. It's chugging along on wheels with minimal effort from your side, if you have an infant you can plonk the bugger little darling into the baby holder and let it rip colourful packets off the shelves or dupattas off the shoppers as it passes them by, and if you like those breadcrumbs that might be useful for making those cutlets that you haven't made in four and a half years, you can just throw the packet into the trolley and carry on. You could end up collecting raw materials (incomplete, of course) for half a dozen cookery and hobby projects to counter your premature midlife crisis, all in one hour's shopping, and never realize it, because the trolley is doing the damned lifting! The trolleys will make sure you use EVERY ONE OF THOSE SODEXO COUPONS in your booklet, even the 50 paisa ones that you count fifteen times when you're ahead of me in the queue (may your cutlets fall to pieces in the kadhai). Between the trolley and the Sodexo, you can be sure that Spar is going to expand into the apartment complex next to it before the year is out!

The husband has devised a wonderful strategy to beat the retailers at their own game. We always pick up a basket. When the basket becomes too heavy, it means it is time to stop shopping. If it becomes too heavy before you've picked up the essential stuff you came to buy, well, you just put those 2 litre bottles of mild detergent back into the shelves! If that doesn't work, you just hand the damned basket to the husband and get another one (basket, not husband).

Today I saw how Spar has deviously shifted the billing counter to the ground floor, and lined the space where the queues form on weekends with chocolate, chips and other junk food that we all eat but scold kids for demanding. Mummies will not even be able to see what junior is adding to the pile on the trolley because she's busy playing "The Price Is Right" in her head and counting off Sodexo coupons. Devious, devious store. To take revenge, I did not even pick up a basket today. I must have looked like a crazy fat woman with flying hair clutching groceries in my arms, but that's how I walked to the billing counter. Bwahahahaha! You cannot make me buy more than I need!

And yes, I DID need that mango, ok???

In other news, The Times Of India has made an amazing breakthrough in the study of the human body.

"Low birth weight due to toxic chemical in toys"

Apparently, the 100% conscience free retail chains are now targetting gullible foetuses. Expecting Ladies who just saw an ultrasound that nearly killed them: It's not a three headed baby! The kid has a playpen in there!