I am compelled to blog about this though I question the wisdom of it even as I write it. Recently I was at a chemist buying the regular rifraff and while waiting for the bill I glanced around the store.

Right below the glass counter that I was leaning on, directly placed in the line of my vision (and everyone else around me) were condoms. Packets lined up in huge rows, with multiple brands and well varied specimens on the covers of the product and in different sized packs. All this I saw in a fleeting glance, only to realise, like my friend says, "that he is seeing me seeing them."

I have always wondered about it. Why display them so publicly? Do sales increase? I mean is it a product which when people see it, while waiting for the bill, and realise," Aha mine are finished let me buy a batch" or "Here is a new brand I would like to try." or like housewives, are multiple brands compared for its various features?

And of course the pictures on them. Like with all things, to make them more attractive and saleable, pictures of women are used. Also sensing the nature of the product, all versions of the female form are used. The point being? Do you pick one seeing the picture or is it just as add on?

I distinctly remember there being a grocery store which we would frequent much more as children than chemist shops and most boys with me would position themselves near a cluttered shelf and giggle away. Some time later in life I realised that this family grocer stocked prophylactics but made sure the counter was always covered with all kinds of other odds and ends and we NEVER saw what was below it. Until I heard the giggles I was not even interested in knowing.

I am yet to enounter trolley fulls of them in stores but here is some one who has and check the comments for even funnier pairings.