Sign of Our Times

I blame it on Google and Amazon.

A big book order arrived at my library, and I assigned student helpers throughout the day to unpack boxes, and check the titles off against the packing list. One young man brought me a book, and said it wasn’t on the packing list. I thanked him and congratulated him on catching the mistake.

 

Later, he brought me two more that weren’t on the list, then 4 more. I was astounded, because our supplier has never made such a mistake. After school, when things were quiet, I took the stack of books and checked the packing list. They were all on it. I looked at the stack of new books, wondering why my student couldn’t find them on the alphabetical list. Slowly, I realized what they had in common: all the titles started with “The…”


He couldn’t find these titles because they weren’t alphabetized in the T’s!