I went, I bought, I cried

Customer is the king/queen, they often say. Is it true?
There are quite a few occasions when I felt more like a victim than a king.
Just a few samples: I bought a branded T-shirt at an international airport, wore it for a day and found that the pocket was almost peeling off thanks to poor stitching. I took it to a roadside tailor and suggested he sew it up. Sew it up he did, but he also did something he could have easily avoided. He tried to iron the shirt and in the process burnt it, leaving a big hole. As if the rising prices have not left enough hole in the pocket already…
During a recent visit to the Meena Bazaar area of Dubai, I bought an expensive (no, I am not joking) branded cellphone. Within weeks, the display went off. “It must be a virus. We cannot do anything,” declared the shopkeeper. I approached another shopkeeper who blamed it on “LCD problem.” Needless to say, I shelled out quite a few bucks on getting the LCD replaced.
Recently at a shopping mall, I chided my wife for picking up tomatoes at random. “Go for the packed one. See how inexpensive it is,” I suggested. She protested initially, but fell for the bait. When we went home, her face went red as the tomatoes, as we found that almost half of them were damaged ones.
RR/ Sept20, 2008.