The future is secure

I am upstairs once again shelving 65 books (an average cart load). There are four relatively easy levels to shelve on, and there is one, miserable bottom row.

To spot where your book goes you have to be able to see the Dewey Numbers. This is plain and easy on the top four rows, but the bottom row requires shuffling along sideways with your body bent into the shape of a candy cane to be close enough to see. Once you have acquired sight of the theoretical gap your book belongs in, you must squat, insert the book, them climb into a standing position. Then you rub your lower back vigorously, take a sip of water or coffee, and then walk around for a bit stamping your foot and leg which has badly cramped up.

I hate the bottom shelf.

All 65 of the books I am shelving today go on the bottom shelf.

"How" You wonder "Is this possible!"

You and me both.

Even if we accepted the outlandish, against all odds premise that people were searching for specific books and luck had it that they were all bottom shelf books, these books are too low quality and random for people to have chosen them ahead of time. These books were all the result of random browsing!

But we also know from our long study of human behavior that people do not browse from uncomfortable positions. They browse where it is convenient to their reach and their eye level. 

Which brings me to the strange, inescapable, and surprisingly hopeful conclusion of our study:

Small children are the only people checking out our adult non fiction anymore.