As a young lad, I took on my first scientific experiment simply because I could. Like most curious youngsters who own walky-talkies, I could only resist for so long the urge to bury one of them (well behind enemy lines) in the bread aisle at the local grocery store, to see what startled shoppers might make of extroverted wheat. This, my first foray into the field of agorology — the very scientific study of shopping, shoppers and shoppingcarts — told me just what I needed to know.