“I was kicked out of Barnes and Noble today cause I moved all the bibles to the Fiction section.”

A facebook “friend” of mine wrote this as his status update yesterday.  It really bothered me.  The twelve comments applauding him and promising to reprise his…what to call it?…act, stand, demonstration?… also rubbed me the wrong way. Now you might be thinking, “of course, you’re bothered, Sunam, you’re a Christian,” but I’m not so sure that’s what it is.  Not in the way you think.

I used to work in a book department. There is an absolute need for order in a book store. If a book is shelved one or two shelves away, it can be impossible to find.  A book shelved in the wrong department?  Forget about it!  Yes, I understand that eventually some nice person might question why there are a pile of bibles shelved in fiction, or an employee might discover the prank (provided that all the moved bibles were moved to the same section), but the disruption would be made.

Presumably, the deed was made to make some sort of statement.  But to whom is the statement being made?  The employees?  The few fellow shoppers witnessing the deed?  If moving the bibles was just to be funny, again, who is the audience?  The act seems like a selfish, self-serving, self-congratulatory deed that only served to entertain my friend as he stealthfully slinked across the store with the bibles.  He then promotes it on facebook to obtain more attaboys when his friends applaud his mischievous shenanigans.

My mind wanders to the employee who has to clean up after him.  One person took umbrage at my friend’s punishment by stating, “So you can pick out 50 books and leave then where you will there, but not so with the Bible?”  I’m pretty sure moving 50 Dr. Seuss books to the medical section (thank you to Joshua for the analogy), would result in the same consequence.  It’s a pain in the tookus to re-shelve after a disrespectful customer’s tomfoolery.  I’ve been there.  I know.

When I react like this to disrespectful behavior Joshua calls it a violation to my cosmic sense of justice. Other’s say I’m a goody goody two shoes (where does that phrase come from, anyway?).  Still others say it’s my Christian upbringing.  I suppose all are correct in a way.  My sense of justice and subsequent behavior are probably born from my personal faith.  And I don’t think people can fault a desire to do right by one’s fellow wo/man.  Well, perhaps they can, but they’d be silly.  And I don’t give credence to silly people.

Yes, it’s true that I dislike the implication that the Bible is a work of fiction, but that belief is not offensive unless forced on others in a disrespectful way.  I’m also not opposed to people making a demonstration about their beliefs.  I do, however, have strong feelings about those who would disrespect others and/or their property for personal entertainment.

I realize this wasn’t a HUGE deal.  He played a prank that interrupted some order and added some work for the employee(s).  The argument can be made that an employee gets paid to clean up such messes, and therefore no actual harm was done.  Others seem to believe that making such demonstrations at a chain retail store like Barnes and Noble makes the act less egregious than if made at a locally-owned store - because the people working at the chain store are thicker-skinned?

I just prefer to give the bookstore employees (and other analogous individuals) some peace.  And should I ever decide to participate in a demonstration, I hope it is made with more thought and planning (e.g. I know my target audience and ensure their awareness of/presence to my cleverness).

AMEN.