There is a convenience store on every other corner in this country, and we hardly look at them. For many people, though, the store is the only place open at three in the morning. (11) A worker who works at night buys a hot bun there; a person who cannot sleep sits by the window. The store sells food, (12) what it really sells is the fact that somebody is still up. In small towns in the north, the store is also where you pay a bill, send a pack, and hear the news. (13), when one closes, the town loses more than a shop. It is easy to call these places boring, (14) they hold a town together at the hours nobody sees.
A shop puts a red sign on a shirt: was 900, now 600. Most of us feel something before we think anything. (15) We do not judge 600 on its own; we judge it against the 900 we just saw. This is why the first price on a page is seldom the one the shop expects you to pay. Shops also know that once we begin to buy, we go on. A small purchase makes the next one easy, (16) the second thing often costs more than the first. (17), none of this means we are foolish. It means our sense of what something is worth is built from what sits beside it, (18) a shop can choose what sits beside it.