The Long Way Round — Why is the milk at the back of the shop?

The milk is at the back of the shop on purpose. Nearly everybody who comes in wants milk, and the shopkeeper earns almost nothing on it, so he puts it as far from the door as it will go and the only way to reach it runs past the crisps, the comics and the chocolate. A shop is not a room with things in it - it is a path, and somebody chose it. You are ten, you were sent for one carton, you came home with four things and no change, and nobody believes you did not mean to. Then Halim, who has run the corner shop since before you were born, tells you exactly what he did - and hands you the crate and lets you do it to somebody else.