A segment to be found in the upcoming “book” effort—
Table of Objects—
Warning!— This table (and the book itself) May Be out of order
So it is expected that written materials, well all lengthy materials will include a table or index to guide folks to specific chapters, pages, sections, images or whatever. When your organizing metaphor is a junk drawer do you really expect traditional organization devices? Well.. there will be a table of objects with a grouping label. Just for fun a somewhat serious attempt will be made to present objects and experiences in alphabetic order. Well not exactly. You see when something is “in order” people generally don’t give the order of things much attention. If, instead, you put a sign on something that reads “out of order” it gets immediate attention. We aren’t saying positive attention, however, it’s attention none theses. Like for instance when you’ve had too much soda or coffee and you pull into the rest stop and walk quickly to relieve your bladder and you scout out the restroom only to see the dreaded words—“Out of Order” that will get your attention. When you have a craving for M&Ms and a moderately large handful of change and you find a vending machine next to that noisy ice machine at the hotel and then spot the nasty taped on half sheet or paper taped over the coin slot… well you get it—out of order makes you take notice.
The intent here is not to be annoying yet why not take advantage of the out of order organization principle?
Hmm?
Actually sometimes compromise is the best route. So If you look really closely to the objects table you might figure out that within the “categories” the objects are listed in order—reverse alphabetical order.
Why “reverse?” Generally because it will slow the reader down a bit and let things get a breath. From the youngest of ages we teach children the alphabet in alphabetic order usually by singing that song. We can recite A to Zed in record time, however doesn’t it take a bit more time and thought to do that in reverse order? The objects in here mean enough that taking a bit more time is warranted. Therefore, the section on “keeping Things Together” will start with Zip Ties and wander through to Athletic Tape.
Before moving forward or backward maybe we should demonstrate that the traditional alphabet isn’t getting completely disrespected. After all, it has a long celebrated developmental history starting way back in the ancient middle east and is sort of known to actually settled a bit by the time of the Roman Empire. Of course the letters and the word alphabet come from ancient Greece and speaking of ancient grease I just smelled some Mcdonald’s fries. Anyway, after J became the final letter added to the modern alphabet around the 16th century and the & sign didn’t hold onto the 27th spot, we had a system which could be used to “order” everything. There are more things to be known about this and when you get to the “education” category you will learn more about writing, reading, math, and yes the alphabet and numbers too. For now we will move ahead and simply acknowledge that the topics here might not fall into an easy order yet if we think about it we might ask—“Does life, time, and/or our experiences and the meanings we give them follow a lock step linear scheme?
For now remember this
ZY X W V U T S R Q O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A — Oh where’s the P? Running down your leg.. didn’t we tell you the restroom was out of order?