Ban Bottom Shelves-

As time has passed, and I have grown both older and more round, I have discovered that the floor has gotten farther away without my growing taller. Most amazing.

I have also developed an aversion to bottom shelves and drawers. Items that have been stored in such places have diminished value to me. It is, perhaps, a corollary of the "four book rule."

The four book rule dictates that any book below the fourth book in any stack of books has a diminished probability of being used. Add enough books to a stack of four, and the bottom book simply becomes part of the shelf.

How does this relate in real life? Well, I went to the book store the other day. They have books, and shelves. Some of the shelves are bottom shelves. I was looking for a book on writing resumes. Reference? No. Business? No. Self help? No.

Back to business. I look and look. Nothing. Back to self help. Nada. Back to reference. Nothing.

So, I go to the desk and ask. The nice young lady leads me back to the business shelf. She pulls two books from the bottom shelf. I had not seen them because I did not bend over sufficiently to really look at the books on that shelf. It was as if that shelf did not exist in my world.

It really is just a matter of engineering. Eliminate the bottom shelf. Ban the bottom drawer. Oh, of course the next shelf or drawer up then becomes the bottom shelf or drawer. But that one won't be so hard to reach.

I am sure a smart attorney could write something into the ban to prevent an infinite regress. Otherwise the ban would lead to the elimination of shelves and drawers altogether. That would be bad.

Then we would have to put all of our stuff on stacks of books.