Piaget and The Filing Cabinet: A Game of Inches

Jean Piaget was a developmental psychologist from the days before there was color in the world, according to all photographic accounts of him.

(Lame, but applicable, anecdote of the week is sponsored by Mountain Dew Throwback. MAN this stuff is good!)

I mention the chap, because I really need him these days. Not so much for myself, but for some of the folk (also known as customers) who require assistance with loading merchandise into their awaiting vehicles. Piaget was, for purposes of this son-of-an-opus, the guy who discovered that very young children believe a tall, skinny eight ounce beaker can hold more water than a short, fat eight ounce beaker due strictly to its taller height. Little kids can only focus on the detail of height. This is known, for all intents and purposes, as "conservation" to those of you who want to be erudite.

Apparently, Piaget was on to something. Nora, who purchases a four-drawer filing cabinet, asks if we can load the large metal object into her 1992 Rustola. No problem, we answer, while we navigate around the half filled basketball, the three golf shoes, and the split plastic trash bags filled with leaves and sticks from last November's annual family yard raking event. To our amazement, the cabinet doesn't fit. "Try turning it around so the drawers are facing down", offers our seventeenth customer of the afternoon to make such offers. Now, we know that isn't going to address the challenge, but to humor the dear lady we invert cabinet only to discover that, in addition to staving off leaves, twigs, and very menacing golf shoes we now also must respond to four filing cabinet drawers attempting to bail out of the struggle. Nora simply cannot grasp the concept that turning the cabinet upside down doesn't save space. It certainly doesn't save Gary's back, if his dancing off while clutching what appears to be a C5 injury is any indication. We try to explain, in layman's terms, to Nora that what must occur first is to create space for the cabinet. "May we dispose of your leaf-filled trash bags?" we ask the poor woman who's already on her third cigarette. Judging from the icy stare, which is a thankful distraction from the pit bull tattoo on her bicep, the answer is a reasonably estimated no. That's okay, though, because Mike is onto something big: by removing the trash bags, stacking the three golf shoes, and then placing the filing cabinet into the truck, all that remains to be done is to crush down, then insert the bags onto the top of the filing cabinet. I could, at this moment, offer Mike a Gatorade, except that I only have one left, and...