The Addicted Consumer

“We just came for one thing, too”.

Sari and I were meandering toward the checkout in a crowded Costco on Saturday morning and I was reflecting out loud on our accumulation of a substantial and diverse pile of goods, although we had come to buy just one thing. But we were not in the same league as the woman who’d overheard me. She may have come for just one thing too, but the lower rack of her cart was loaded, the little area at the front for babies or purses was full and the main body of the cart was stacked so high above her line of sight that her daughter was helping direct the vehicle to a checkout lane. Clearly the next innovation in cart design needs to be the installation of a periscope.