In its simplest form the shelf is a plank fixed to a wall

A place to keep your stuff organized

Visible for easy access

Sometimes pleasing to the eye

Some shelves are hidden inside cabinets and closets

These are the easiest targets for unorganized clutter

No need to keep these neat and tidy

Just try to keep the door closed door

Books are more likely on open shelf display

You can easily tell if people actually read their books

From the way their shelves are arranged

The neatest ones with a few books on their sides are purely ornamental

The simple shelf also has some special associations

Nobody wants to be left on the shelf

Instant unemployment arises if your job is shelved

Top shelf items can either be high end goods or pornographic

Items fly off the shelf when sales are soaring

Tailor made or exclusive items are never bought off the shelf

Expired goods are way past their shelf life

Empty shelves remind us of famine or shortages

Some things live on shelves forever

Starting life in a warehouse shelf

Progressing to a shelf in a retail store

Then purchased and put on a shelf at home to be forgotten

A modern glass shelf can have no visible brackets

Embedded into a wall with no means of support

This gravity defying feat catches your eye

The ideal way to display a piece of fine art

Much less pleasing is a badly installed shelf

Overloaded sagging shelves are painful to look at

Perhaps the worst of all is a leaning shelf

Even one degree off horizontal catches your eye

Shopping is a whole new experience without shelves

Warehouse pallets on the floor replacing supermarket shelves

No need to employ shelf stackers there

Its called Costco