our weak world

My wife picked up a bookshelf from target today. She could put it into the cart and then into the trunk, but going any further would probably do damage to her ~ 24 weeks pregnant frame. As I went outside to carry it from the car to the apartment, I noticed a sign on the box that got me annoyed with whomever wrote it down.

To my disgust, it had an advisory saying that 3-4 people should carry it! Now, I'm kicking myself because I can't find the exact shelf on target.com, but the point is, it wasn't more than 100 pounds. I carried from the car the 30 or so feet to the spot where it belonged in our apartment with no stress or worry that my back would be strained, and I'm a sissy boy intellectual!

Seriously people, do we need a sign to tell us how many people are needed to lift a particular box? And do we also need that sign to make it such that 3 people are lifting about 40 pounds each (and that's a maximal estimate--I'm guessing this thing was about 80 pounds)? I could see how maybe 2 people would be needed to hold the thing, but ultimately we should be big enough to know if something is too heavy for us. I'm sure it was a protective move to ensure that no lawsuits happen, but it really was laughable to think that 3-4 people would be needed to carry this thing.

We live in a society that is tailor made for weakness and litigious stupidity. It must end, and it will end when we start taking on more responsibility for ourselves.