Like a car without wheels.

A man walks into a bookstore in a small town inquiring after a copy of George Orwell's Animal Farm. The bookstore is strange in that it is very small and contains next to no books whatsoever. The store owner tells the man that he has the book in stock but is unable to sell it. When questioned about why the sale of the book is an impossibility the store owners replies by telling the man the following:

"I can't stand clutter, I hate it. See that's the problem with running a second hand bookstore is books keep coming in from all over the place and the only way I can keep on top of things is by packing up the old books in boxes and taking them home. To be honest I can't sell you the book because I will never be able to find it, there are that many boxes filled with that many books."


The man leaves the store feeling very confused... a bookstore which has books in stock but will not sell them to you because it would be too much trouble... a bookstore with maybe ten books in the entire store... it is very difficult to be a customer in a store like this one the man thinks to himself.


Later in the week that same man is having coffee with a friend in the main street when the topic of the bookstore or more specifically the sanity of the book store owner gets brought up. His friend informs him of the following:

"You didn't actually go in there trying to buy anything did you? He'll never sell it to you."


The man's friend tells him this in a way that is completely at peace with the fact that the local bookstore contains no books. She says it as if this is just business as usual and it would be strange of you to expect anything else.