“But mommy, I don’t like this bag. You say you would buy the other 
one,” an obviously distressed primary school girl said to her mother on the jampacked Regent Street pavement.
Her also obviously distressed (or was it angry) mother snapped, “I buying what I can afford, de bag you want is whole $10,000 and this one is $6,000”. Her words did not appease the little one, who was close to tears.
I observed the exchange even as I myself looked for back-to-school bargains for my children. I did not make the mistake of taking them with me. I learnt from that mistake a long time ago and ‘wrung my ears’ so to speak.