Dewey Decimal System

References

• Dewey Decimal Classification
• Melvil Dewey
• S.
• J.J. Abrams
• Doug Dorst
• Ergodic literature
• Library of Congress Classification
• Gattaca
• Brave New World
• Harry Potter
• The Shop Around the Corner
• You’ve Got Mail
• The Lake House
• Saint Barthélemy

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Shep]
Someone discovers that they were misfiled. Their entire life has been spent under the wrong classification- I, as I’m reading this, I’m like, “This is Gattaca.”

[Emily]
It’s also Brave New World.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was going to say, “Shep, have you read A Brave New World?”

[Emily]
That’s- I was like, I was literally also gonna do that.

[Shep]
I have not. I have not. So ignore that one.

[Thomas]
Finally, we get to turn it around on him, Em!

[Emily]
Yay!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, Story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and I like to read, but compared to my phenomenally well-read co-hosts, I’m basically illiterate. I have no idea where they find the time to read as much as they do, but they are Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys!

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
My name is Shepard, and I have a crippling reading addiction.

[Thomas]
Where do you guys find all that time to read?

[Emily]
I don’t have a social life outside of this.

[Thomas]
Me either.

[Shep]
I read instead of sleeping or any other activity, including sometimes working. So-

[Emily]
I also don’t exercise, so I read instead of doing that.

[Shep]
I remember, so we had a big party. This is when I lived in Japan. There was a big party where a bunch of us were going. And I started reading, like, after work. And I’m like, “I’m just going to read. I’m just going to read for three hours, right?” Just the three hours between work and the party. And then I read through the party, and I didn’t go to the party because I could have spent more time reading. I made my choice.

[Thomas]
I do remember one time when I was in like fifth grade or something like that. During class, I was sent to the library to get some book. And while I was there, I found some other book and sat down and started reading it. And I have no idea how long I was there, but all of a sudden, the librarian comes over and is like, “Your teacher called and is wondering where you are.” I was like, “Oh, whoops.”

[Emily]
I don’t do long stints of reading. I do a lot of like, “Okay, I have a minute. I’m going to read.”

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
That’s a part of how I get through a lot of stuff is that I’ll read for five minutes here, ten minutes there. Also, my favorite thing to get me through chores is if I do the dishes, then I get to read a chapter.

[Thomas]
Hahaha.

[Emily]
If I vacuum, then I get to read a chapter. so-

[Shep]
Oh, see, you got do-

[Thomas]
See, I listen to audiobooks, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, Then you can listen to them while you’re doing dishes.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
If I’m doing an audiobook, that’s absolutely how I get through it. When I mow the lawn-

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
I listen to an audiobook.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yep. Big same.

[Thomas]
Well, today we’re going to create a movie plot where the central theme is the Dewey Decimal System. Or the Dewey Decimal Classification, as it’s officially called? Although I’ve literally never heard anyone refer to it that way, including my dad, who has a master’s degree in library science. Now, before we jump in, we do want to take a moment to recognize the man who created the system, Melvil Dewey, and what a giant asshole he was.

[Emily]
Okay, thank you.

[Thomas]
The classification he created was, and in many ways, still is, misogynistic, homophobic, and has a Christo-centric systematic religious bias. That’s just the classification. Dewey himself was a racist, antisemitic, serial sexual harasser, and even his friends found him a difficult person. Now, with all of that hanging in the air-

[Shep]
Oh good.

[Thomas]
Here are my pitches.

[Shep]
Oh good. What a start.

[Thomas]
My first is a rom-com where two people keep moving one specific book around a library and communicating to each other with little notes and sending each other on like a scavenger hunt around the library using the Dewey Decimal System.

[Shep]
So, have you heard of the book S.?

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
S Period. That’s the title.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
I think J.J. Abrams came up with it, and then Doug Dorst wrote it. It is one of those, what is it called? Ergotic books? Where it’s like, it takes extra effort to- it’s not, like, just words on a page. So it is a mysterious out-of-print book titled Ship of Theseus by fictional author V.M. Straka. But there is a story in the margins of the book where two people, grad students, maybe? College students?

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
Jen and Eric, are writing notes in the margin as they check out the book and then they’re like passing the notes back and forth or they’re inserting things into the book. Notes and photos, maps, letters. So it’s, it sounds like what you’re describing, but this is a book that exists right now.

[Emily]
I have to stop recording now. I thank you.

[Shep]
Oh no.

[Emily]
What is this called? S?

[Shep]
“S.” S period.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Doug Dorst. Doug Dorst is the author.

[Emily]
I guess I know what I’m doing next weekend.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s not do that idea then, if it already exists.

[Shep]
Well, I mean, this is one implementation of it that exists.

[Thomas]
Sure, sure. Well, my other idea is when a patron comes into her library looking for a specific book, Mary finds a gap on the shelf where the computer says the book should be. She reaches out to other libraries, but everyone she contacts reports the book is missing from their shelf, with no record of it having been checked out in years. Whatever is in that book, someone wants it gone, and it seems like they’re succeeding. That’s when the librarian learns that a single, overdue loan may be the last remaining copy in existence.

[Emily]
Interesting.

[Shep]
So, Thomas, have you read the book…?

[Thomas]
Oh no.

[Shep]
No. No, no.

[Thomas]
Those are mine. Emily, what do you have?

[Emily]
I have a half-written one. I’m not going to lie. I just couldn’t figure out how to finish the pitch.

[Shep]
I mean, we’ll write the other half.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s-

[Emily]
This is what I thought because I couldn’t figure out a way to finish the pitch. So I’m like, “You know I’m just gonna stop, because we can figure it out from here.”

[Thomas]
Perfect.

[Emily]
A young man receives a text in the middle of the night with what appears to be a random set of characters. He ignores it but receives it again a few days later. Blocks the number and moves on but the text keeps coming over and over.

[Shep]
A very good idea.

[Emily]
Finally he searches it in the computer online and the characters turn out to be a Dewey Decimal number for a book. and the next day he gets another text with another Dewey Decimal number. And after the fifth text, that’s right, he waits five texts of Dewey Decimal numbers to begin looking for a pattern.

[Thomas]
He is a young man, so-

[Emily]
He’s a young man. That’s it.

[Thomas]
So you don’t have a sense of why this is happening.

[Emily]
I have a couple of places to go with it one was sort of a rom-com idea with somebody like you put all the titles together or-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Find all the books and in the books, there are notes or something like that.

[Thomas]
Sure, sure.

[Emily]
Scavenger hunt style. Or there was, it’s coded, some kind of portal sci-fi thingy that you guys could come up with. Or a murderer. Of course, obviously. Serial killer.

[Thomas]
Right, lure him deep into the stacks and then-

[Emily]
Yeah. Well, and then each book represents a victim.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Emily]
I’m leaning towards that one now.

[Shep]
So, is it a random set of characters? Because isn’t the Dewey Decimal System just numbers? It’s not like the-

[Emily]
No, it has letters. Dewey Decimal System has letters.

[Shep]
Does it?

[Emily]
Yeah, isn’t the Library of Congress just numbers?

[Thomas]
It’s the other way around.

[Shep]
No, I thought it was the other way around.

[Emily]
Is it the other way around?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
No way.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
That’s not true.

[Thomas]
Oh, sorry, I guess you’re- we were wrong.

[Emily]
Okay, then yeah have random set of numbers. I kind of just got used in college and grad school to Library of Congress.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Rather than Dewey Decimal.

[Thomas]
It is the better system.

[Emily]
It is the better system.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Anyway, Shep, what do you have?

[Shep]
Okay. In a society where every person is assigned a Dewey Decimal-like soul number at birth that determines their education, career, social standing, etc., someone discovers that they were misfiled. Their entire life has been spent under the wrong classification- I, as I’m reading this, I’m like, “This is Gattaca.”

[Emily]
It’s also Brave New World.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was going to say, “Shep, have you read A Brave New World?”

[Emily]
That’s- I was like, I was literally also gonna do that.

[Shep]
I have not. I have not. So ignore that one.

[Thomas]
Finally, we get to turn it around on him, Em!

[Emily]
Yay!

[Shep]
No, no, no, no. Okay. An anti-library, whose Dewey Decimal System goes into the negative.

[Thomas]
Ooh.

[Emily]
What does it catalog then?

[Shep]
I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s all I know. Look, you guys got to write the second half. I just wrote the first half.

[Thomas]
That’s where all the mysticism and Satanism and all that, that goes in there. It’s, it’s a library in hell.

[Shep]
Oh, gosh.

[Emily]
I’ve read that book.

[Shep]
Here’s my last pitch. A new librarian is introduced to the section of the Dewey Decimal System dealing with spellbooks, with working spells!

[Thomas]
Probably in the negative numbers.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Mm hm.

[Shep]
That’s kind of just-

[Emily]
Harry Potter.

[Shep]
Harry Potter. Did I come up with any new ideas this time? I don’t know.

[Thomas]
I feel like the negative number Dewey Decimal System thing-

[Emily]
That one, yeah.

[Thomas]
That, I’m not aware of something that uses that. Ah. Maybe it’s like, that’s like the banned books section, right? It’s the negative numbers.

[Emily]
Ooh.

[Shep]
So books get moved from the regular section to the banned. They just make it negative.

[Thomas]
There’s like a secret, you got to be like in the know. You got to know which librarian to talk to. You got to be vetted. And then they’re like, “All right, we’ll take you into the negative numbers room.”

[Shep]
Right. It’s like the secret menu at fast food places, but it’s the secret catalog.

[Thomas]
Right, right. Yeah. Well, which pitch do we want to pursue?

[Shep]
I kind of want to do the first one where it’s a rom-com-

[Emily]
I do too.

[Thomas]
All right.

[Shep]
Even though it’s this it’s the book S., but I haven’t read the book S. So-

[Thomas]
I mean, none of us have, so yeah.

[Emily]
We get to make it up now before any of us get to read it, and then we’ll read it and we can be like, “Yeah, we had a better idea.”

[Thomas]
All right, let’s name our two characters right away.

[Shep]
What were they in S. so we don’t accidentally?

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah. Good thinking.

[Shep]
Jen and Eric. Jen and Eric where the characters in S.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
So, we don’t have go-to names for good people.

[Emily]
We don’t.

[Shep]
We just have like Steve.

[Emily]
Steve and Shannon are what we have.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Steve and Shannon are the bad ones.

[Thomas]
Mark?

[Shep]
Mark.

[Thomas]
And Lily.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Shep]
Mark and Lily.

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Emily]
I like Mark because bookmark.

[Thomas]
Ah, good.

[Emily]
So you gotta come up with something better than Lily. No, Mark and Lily. Okay.

[Thomas]
So it’s there’s one specific book.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
I suppose it’s a book that they’re both looking for. Does one of them leave a note in the book in case somebody else like, “Oh, to the stranger who reads this next?”

[Emily]
I once found a bookmark in a book at the library in college, and it had this really sweet note from a guy to his girlfriend/wife. I don’t know. I never found out who the people were. I kept it forever. I might even still have it somewhere.

[Shep]
Imagine how devastated they were when they realized they accidentally left it in the book.

[Emily]
I know. So, what if it was something like that, where it was a note left for somebody else, but it was just like really beautifully written, like a poem or something?

[Shep]
Oh, I was going to say it’s a postcard with, you know, the thing. But I’m like, “Oh, but that would have their address on the other side.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s no good.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
You want like a letter or something where they can be like, “Oh, you’re using this as a bookmark, but you clearly didn’t mean to leave it in the book.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
If we want them communicating through books, perhaps whatever is there is some notes that they were taking. So they were referencing multiple books.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
And so that gives them another book. Like maybe they’ll come back to this book, but I can put a note in another book as well.

[Shep]
Yeah, I like that.

[Thomas]
Or perhaps it’s an unfinished thought and they think, “They’re going to come back.” Or it’s something important.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Something that they’re like “Oh, they’re going to come back, and look for this book specifically. So I’ll put my own little note in this book so that when they come back, they’ll find my note as well.”

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s kind of where I was trying to go with it: is that they left something important there. So this person now has the opportunity to leave a note knowing they’ll come back for it.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that.

[Shep]
Okay, so who left the note originally, accidentally?

[Emily]
Flip a coin.

[Thomas]
He’s literally going to flip a coin. All right.

[Shep]
Which one’s which?

[Emily]
Heads for Mark, tails for Lily.

[Shep]
I would have gone the other way. Heads for Lily, tails for Mark.

[Emily]
I have my reasons.

[Shep]
Okay. It was heads.

[Emily]
Yeah, Mark leaves the first note.

[Shep]
So, Mark is researching something.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right? So is this a university library? Are these… Oh, no, that’s S. again.

[Emily]
No, it’s uh-

[Thomas]
It’s a public library.

[Shep]
It can’t be a university library because they don’t use the Dewey Decimal system.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, they use Library of Congress because it’s better.

[Shep]
Got to be a public library.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So it’s a public library. And Mark is researching something.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Not for a college paper.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
They’re researching it for themselves. Maybe they’re looking into their family history-

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Or history of some kind.

[Emily]
Could it be as simple as like gardening or-

[Thomas]
Well, I like, I was thinking about that, like gardening or recipes or something like that, but I feel like if you left your notes in the book, you’d just be like, “Eh, well, whatever.”

[Emily]
Family history?

[Thomas]
Whereas if it was like family history, you’d be like, “Oh, shoot, I wanted that. I’m putting together my family tree.”

[Emily]
“This is something important for me to-,” yeah, okay.

[Thomas]
So you would go back and look for that and hope that, “Oh, maybe it’s still in the book.”

[Emily]
That makes more sense.

[Shep]
So we can have gardening or cooking or whatever as later books-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Because the idea is that they’re passing notes back and forth between different books.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Ooh, ooh, wait. Before we commit to genealogy or some sort of family history, this is a great opportunity for us to establish that they both really like puzzles. And that sets up their whole scavenger hunt thing.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
And so they’re leaving each other clues of where to look. So it’s not just like, “Oh, go look in this book.” So what kind of a book could they be researching in? And what kind of note could they leave for themself that sets that up?

[Emily]
Okay, so I have a terrible idea.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Excellent.

[Emily]
Could the note be written on a piece of paper on the back of an advertisement for a escape room or something of that nature?

[Thomas]
Sure. So on one side of the paper is the research, the family tree research, and then the other side of the paper has like puzzles or scribbles or whatever. So when Lily finds it, she looks at both sides of the paper. She goes, “Oh, this person enjoys these same activities that I do.”

[Shep]
Or, here’s another idea. There is some sort of augmented reality game going on. And in that game, there is a clue that leads to this history book.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
That’s why they both checked it out, right? They’re both doing this other external game.

[Emily]
Hm.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Shep]
And that’s what led them both to this book. And when Lily finds the book, she finds the notes in the book about the game.

[Thomas]
Hmm, okay.

[Shep]
And she recognizes, “Oh, someone else is playing this game. And in fact, they’re a step ahead of me. And here’s their notes about the next book.”

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s good.

[Emily]
I like that.

[Shep]
Or the next series of books? Or potential, like here’s a list of whatever. I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Or it could even be something where they have to put multiple pieces of information together. And so Mark’s notes give her the information she needs to figure out the next book. And she goes to the library and it hasn’t been checked out. So she’s like, “Oh, he hasn’t figured it out yet.” And so leaves him a note in that book.

[Shep]
Ah.

[Thomas]
Along with his original note to show, like, “Here’s how I found you.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Or she writes on the paper and puts it in there.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Also, because it’s an external puzzle and the puzzles keep leading them to the library, now that she’s ahead of him, she’ll know what the next clue is. And maybe she can find the next book and leave a note ahead of time for Mark to find. And then he could figure out the next book and leave a note for her.

[Emily]
Ooh, so they kind of end up racing each other a little bit at first. It’s more of a “Haha, I caught you.”

[Shep]
It’s a competition.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
A little friendly competition. Yeah. Now, is the mid-second act turning point that the next book is one that their library doesn’t have?

[Shep]
Yeah, it should have. It’s supposed to be on the shelf, but where it is-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Is it’s missing.

[Thomas]
That adds complication. How are they going to find each other now?

[Shep]
Yeah. Are they trying to find each other? At first, it’s competition.

[Emily]
Yeah. At first, it’s just competition.

[Shep]
Yeah, the first note is: “Thanks for the hints, sucker.”

[Thomas]
So he has to work extra hard to get back ahead of her.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, “Who’s the sucker now?” Yeah, because some one of them could leave like, after a couple times, like a little extra note or like an extra little inlet that’s like, “Oh, by the way, something blah, blah,” I don’t know. Stickers. I started a thought and it and it died.

[Thomas]
Before we get too far down this path, the Dewey Decimal System isn’t really playing any kind of a role in this. The external game is what’s guiding them, so-

[Shep]
The external game is guiding them to books, but the pattern is in the numbers of the books where they are in the Dewey Decimal System. That’s what one of them figures out. Like, it’s not-

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
Just the puzzle of, you know, who did this in the past and what did they make? And that led to this and this other thing. It’s look at the numbers. Look at the numbers. They’re forming a pattern. They’re perfect primes. There’s-

[Thomas]
So there’s like a larger metagame for somebody who’s very clever in paying attention.

[Shep]
Right. It’s not clear in the external game that this is what it is, but that is what it is.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
Since the Dewey Decimal system is just numbers, you can have number puzzles based on that.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that. Way to solve the problem, Shep. Good job.

[Shep]
Also, it keeps Dewey Decimal in the-

[Thomas]
Yes, yes. On an ongoing basis, too.

[Shep]
Yeah. Do they meet each other? Well I just want to know where the story is going. They must meet each other if it’s a rom-com.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, they have to meet in the second act?

[Thomas]
Well, so we have a couple of options. It could be the mid-second act turning point is that’s where things change. They meet each other because we want that quote-unquote “falling out”, right? That rom-coms always have to have.

[Shep]
No, boo. I hate it.

[Thomas]
I mean, I agree. Actually, that’s a good point. So they could meet… Oh, ah. Okay, here we go: What if the lowest low is something about how the game, that external game just stops or seemingly stops? Where it’s this like everybody online is like, “This puzzle is impossible. We could figure them all out up to now, but this is nuts.” And so that, that’s where they have to find each other somehow and work together to be able to progress in the game.

[Shep]
I want to throw a wrench into the works.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
They talk about whether they should meet. They haven’t committed to it yet.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
And one of the times Lily goes to what she thinks is the next book, there is a guy there reading the book. And she’s like, “Oh, this is Mark.” But it’s not Mark.

[Emily]
Not Mark.

[Shep]
No, it’s just some guy.

[Thomas]
It’s Steve. It’s Steeeeeve!

[Emily]
It’s Steve.

[Shep]
And so, Steve is reading this book. And this girl comes up to him excited to see him and wants to go get coffee together or whatever. What is he going to do? He’s like, “Yeah!”

[Thomas]
He’s like, “Wow, this never happens.”

[Shep]
Yeah. “Great. I’d love to.”

[Emily]
I like that.

[Thomas]
I feel like their conversation very quickly would reveal that he is not Mark, unless he’s also playing the game, in which case it might go a little longer. But she’s going to be making references to notes that they’ve left each other-

[Emily]
The notes, yeah.

[Thomas]
And he’s going to be like, “Yeah, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

[Shep]
Now, what information are they including in the notes? Is it just them working on the puzzle kind of together in the notes? Or are they talking about other external information? Because if they haven’t said anything about themselves.

[Thomas]
Hmm. You said she sees Steve reading the book and goes, “Oh, that’s Mark,” but it could just be, “Oh, that’s that guy I’ve been talking to.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So they don’t know each other’s names or anything like that.

[Shep]
They don’t know each other’s names.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Oh, and if Mark has left the note in the book, then Steve has read the note. Like, here’s their history of working on this puzzle together. How long until Steve realizes this is one of the people from the note?

[Thomas]
You think it’d be pretty soon, especially if she references the note, right?

[Emily]
Well, yeah, because he’s Steve, he notices very quickly, but continues to let her think he’s that guy because he’s Steve.

[Shep]
So we agree Steve is not a great guy.

[Emily]
Yes, 100%.

[Shep]
So Lily and Steve go out to coffee and chat, and this is the first time Lily is chatting about something other than the ongoing puzzle, which they haven’t solved.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
She wants to get to know this other person, and everything he says is disappointing.

[Emily]
Right. He’s not as clever or charming as the notes appear.

[Shep]
He’s not as clever or charming. He still lives with his mom, you know, but he’s between work engagements or gigs.

[Thomas]
Between work engagements.

[Shep]
Yeah, it’s, uh…

[Emily]
He hasn’t gotten that bridge yet. His tooth is, you know.

[Thomas]
Oh.

[Shep]
Oh, jeez.

[Thomas]
He’s got to be missing teeth in 2026. That’s, those are the rules.

[Shep]
So Lily’s kind of heartbroken. She had built up this image in her mind of her puzzle-solving partner. And instead, there’s, it’s just a wet flop.

[Emily]
Yeah, and in her mind, it wasn’t so much that he was handsome because Steve is handsome because he’s Steve, but it’s that personality and intelligence is gone. And so she’s like, “Oh.”

[Shep]
So there’s that kink. How do How do Lily and Mark meet each other?

[Emily]
So she kind of wants to give up on that communication piece with him.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And so like, she goes and finds the book and there’s a note and she kind of ignores it. And then when she goes to get the next two books over, whatever we’ve set up the pattern to be, there’s another note from Mark that was like, “Hey, did you not get the last clue yet?” Or, you know, something like that about clearly he’s noticed the miscommunication between them.

[Thomas]
Does Steve keep the note? So now their shared note is gone.

[Emily]
I mean, he is Steve, so that that tracks.

[Thomas]
So Mark would create a new note, I guess, and be like, “Hey, I haven’t heard from you in a while. Did you not figure it out?”

[Emily]
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
There would be that where she kind of just stops because he’s that disappointing, where she’s like-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
“This is no longer fun. I’m just going to concentrate on the puzzle on my own.” And then that’s that that poor communication piece with a falling out that actually makes sense.

[Thomas]
So that’s late then. That’s an end the second act, right?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Which I think makes sense.

[Emily]
Does that work?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So does that mean the… I feel like this story is really short, but does that make this mid-second act turning point is they decide to start working together? Like, it started off as like-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Ahaha, I’ve got the next clue.” And it’s sort of a rivalry. And then things get a little tough. And they’re like, “Hey, should we try to like figure this out together?” But it’s all still through the notes. And then the end of the second act is meeting Steve and thinking it’s Mark.

[Emily]
I’m okay with that, if Shep’s okay with that.

[Shep]
No objection.

[Thomas]
And then that then that makes the end of the third act the climax is-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
They actually meet in person.

[Emily]
Okay. So now we need to figure out how they meet in person.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Hmm.

[Emily]
Without it being exactly the way she met Steve.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
She’s got to be skeptical at this point because of the whole Steve debacle.

[Emily]
Would there be some kind of meetup at some point of this group, this game, gamers, whatever?

[Shep]
Is it a local thing or is it an online thing?

[Emily]
Even if it’s an online thing, couldn’t there be a local meetup for it?

[Thomas]
There could be, yeah.

[Emily]
Because that would be an opportunity for them to be in the same place in a way that they would piece it together.

[Shep]
Oh! Okay.

[Emily]
Go for it.

[Shep]
I want to add another thing.

[Emily]
Do it.

[Thomas]
He’s just tossing wrenches over here.

[Shep]
I, yes. I’m trying to juggle wrenches and they keep getting accidentally thrown into the machinery.

[Thomas]
“Ah! I thought juggling them next to the machine would be such a clever idea.”

[Shep]
So Lily has this idea in her mind of her puzzle partner. And she really wants to meet them because she likes how they think. They’re clever. They know all this stuff. She has already encountered Mark outside of the puzzle. And it’s just this guy. Maybe he works in the library. Or maybe he’s just around the library or whatever.

[Thomas]
Well, it turns out they have some other interest in common. They-

[Shep]
Right. Yes.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
And she kind of is attracted to him. And maybe she was thinking about asking him out. But then she runs into Steve at the book.

[Thomas]
Hm.

[Shep]
And he’s got the note. And she’s like, “Oh, that’s the guy. Forget this other guy.” And then she goes out with Steve and he’s kind of a wet blanket. And she’s really disappointed.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Shep]
So she already met Mark. She just didn’t realize, because they didn’t share their names.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm. Right.

[Emily]
Mm-hmm.

[Shep]
She didn’t realize he was her puzzle partner.

[Thomas]
And then somehow at the end they figure it out.

[Shep]
Somehow at the end, she figures it out. She’s smart. She can figure it out.

[Thomas]
And she says, “I’d hoped it would be you.”

[Shep]
Oh, no, that’s the that’s the end of Shop Around the Corner. Or what is it? You’ve Got Mail.

[Thomas]
You’ve Got Mail. Yeah.

[Shep]
There are no new ideas!

[Thomas]
There aren’t. I like that idea, though, that they’ve already met and they don’t realize it. How often do they see each other in real life?

[Emily]
Well, it depends on how they meet. Like, is it that he’s a librarian or works there?

[Thomas]
And how close are they too?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Or he works at the coffee shop that’s in the library. He’s a barista.

[Thomas]
Baristo.

[Shep]
Baristo, you’re right. Sorry for not gendering-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Our loan words in English. I would like a scene where she complains to Mark about this guy.

[Thomas]
Totally.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Yes, that would be amazing.

[Thomas]
I could totally see her being vague on details with Mark too, because this is weird, right? Like, communicating with secret notes in the library. Like, someone who’s not my book buddy would think that this is a very strange thing.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
So yeah, “Just this is somebody I’ve been talking to and hoped he would be, he was such a cool guy. And then-“

[Shep]
“Oh, how did you meet?” “Oh, we had a shared interest.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
“We sent messages back and forth, and then-“

[Thomas]
Yeah. “We’ve been messaging each other.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Ha ha. See, even that is close enough to a hint that Mark might get it.

[Thomas]
And we can even see that. We can see Mark kind of have like a “Huh…” look on his face.

[Emily]
Hm.

[Shep]
Or he thinks, “Hey, I’ve also been messaging someone. I could talk to her about this. She sort of ghosted me all of a sudden.”

[Thomas]
Oh. Right.

[Emily]
So they talk like they met somebody on Tinder.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I was thinking instead of like Mark working in the library or in the as a baristo, they could just be like friends of the library kind of people where they go to a lot of the events the libraries hold.

[Thomas]
Mm hmm. I do that.

[Emily]
So a lot of variety of events.

[Thomas]
It’s fun. It’s great.

[Emily]
Yeah. yeah They’re just people who check out what the library has to offer and run into each other now and again.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Or they’re in AA, and they’ve, you know-

[Thomas]
They’re always meeting in the library basement.

[Emily]
Yep. That was the other idea. That’s why they’re both into this game because it, you know, replaces the alcohol.

[Shep]
Right. I try to go to my crippling reading addiction meetings, but they were also in a library and… disaster.

[Emily]
So they’re talking about each other-

[Thomas]
To each other.

[Emily]
To each other.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
But she thinks she talking about Steve.

[Thomas]
I mean, well, yeah, she’s talking about both of them without realizing it, yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How do they realize that they’ve been the ones? So we have the meeting. They know each other. They’re building a rapport, so it’s not going to be one of those creepy, like, Lake House stories. where it’s like, “We’re just exchanging letters and then all of a sudden we’re madly in love.” Like, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s never, those never make sense to me, where it’s like, okay, but you don’t really know the person, right?

[Shep]
I mean, a lot of rom-coms, they don’t really know the person.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I know, but for some reason, this is the one that bothers me.

[Thomas]
Well, let’s take a break here and we can unpack why it’s bothering Emily. And when we come back, we’ll figure out what happens between Mike and Lily.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. When we left off, we were trying to figure out how do Mark and Lily realize that they are the ones who were leaving the notes. We sort of hinted at Mark maybe starting to realize that it was Lily.

[Emily]
Mm.

[Thomas]
There were some things she was saying that was causing him to put two and two together, as it were.

[Shep]
See, I want them to know each other outside of the library so they don’t immediately clock that it’s the other puzzle person.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So he doesn’t work out the library in any capacity.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So they also don’t know each other from the library.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
They don’t know each other from the library. They know each other from some other capacity. And they are attracted to each other. But each of them also has this attraction to this mystery person that they’re communicating with. And so maybe they almost get together before she runs into Steve. And then she finds Steve and she’s like, “Oh, that’s the puzzle guy. I finally found him.” And she tries to build a relationship with Steve. Maybe she even excitedly tells Mark, “Hey, I found the guy that I’ve been I’ve been messaging. We met in person.” And so they don’t end up getting together. And they don’t realize-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
That they have, that they’re avoiding this relationship because they have this imaginary other relationship. And that happens to be the same person.

[Thomas]
Sure. And even if he is starting to suspect for some reason her saying, “I met the guy-“

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
I feel like in his mind, he’d be like, “Oh, it okay. I was wrong. It wasn’t her.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
So they can’t have the puzzle in common. They can’t have the library in common. They have something, some third thing in common.

[Thomas]
Yeah. It could be a gaming group. They meet up at a bar or something and play board games or there’s a gamer space.

[Shep]
Oh, it’s trivia night at the bar.

[Emily]
I was going to say, is it bar trivia?

[Thomas]
Oh, there you go.

[Shep]
Because that gives them a regular time that they meet every once a week. And in fact, you can have the reveal that they know each other at a bar trivia where one of the questions is about one of the books and they both know it.

[Thomas]
Ah, yeah.

[Emily]
That would be so cute.

[Thomas]
It would have to be some like really obscure book too, like, “Why do you know that book?”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Right. And then they re- be, they can reveal the other books that they’ve looked up at that time. You know what I mean?

[Thomas]
Mm hmm hm.

[Shep]
This might be a problem for the writers to work out the details-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But like one of the bar trivia hints is about one of the books. They both know it. And then one of them says something about one of the other books and the other one knows it. And they’re just trying to confirm, like, “Hey, maybe this is the other person because they know all the books. Or at least they’re doing the same puzzle.”

[Thomas]
Yeah, I think the initial thing would be like, “Oh my gosh, are you also playing this game? Oh, that’s so crazy.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
That feels like… Was it the end of the second act, that lowest low was Steve turns out to suck? Is that what we decided? So them realizing they’re both playing the game could happen relatively early in the third act. And so it’s over the course of the third act that they are comparing notes. Or maybe halfway through the third act, they realize that they’re playing the game, something like that. But at some point, one of them starts to figure out, like, “Oh, wait a minute. Actually I think this might be the person.” And so there’s got to be some inside joke that we’ve established much earlier in the film.

[Shep]
Yes, one of them thinks that something leads to this other book. So they’ve all, they, both of them looked at this other book that’s not part of the puzzle, but it’s something the two of them know.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And they joke about it occasionally in the notes.

[Shep]
Is Steve at bar trivia? Did he come to this thing? And so when Lily is asking the questions, she’s looking at both Mark and Steve, because if Mark knows it and Steve doesn’t, then Steve has been lying about doing this puzzle.

[Thomas]
Is she dating Steve? Does she go more than one date with Steve?

[Shep]
Yeah, she’s trying to make it work.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because she built up this fantasy, but it’s not working. And that’s why she keeps complaining to Mark about Steve.

[Thomas]
I could see her then, if she’s trying to make it work, bringing him to trivia.

[Emily]
Yeah, at least once.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Maybe that’s even Mark’s suggestion, too. Like, she’s complaining. She’s like, “I thought he was more clever. I thought he was like more erudite.” So Mark’s like, “Well, bring him to trivia. If he’s as clever as he was in these notes.” Like, you know, or “in the messages that you guys were exchanging, he should be good at trivia, right?” Like, she could even say that. Like, “He seemed so well-read and he seemed to know all these things.” And he’s like “Oh, well it sounds like he’d be great at trivia. You should bring him.” And then that question comes up. And she turns to Steve with this look on her face, like, “Oh obviously we both know this. It’s from the game.” And Steve’s just like, “Oh, do you know it?” She’s like, “Yeah, of course we know it.” He’s like, “Oh, I don’t know what it is.” She’s like, “How could you not know it? It’s like the first book.”

[Shep]
She doesn’t say that, but you can see on her face-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
She’s starting to suspect.

[Thomas]
And maybe she turns to Mark to say, like, “Okay, well, I know it. It’s (whatever).” And he’s already written it down.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it.”

[Thomas]
She’s like, “Wait, how do you know it?”

[Shep]
Oh, if he’s writing it down, she sees his handwriting.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah.

[Emily]
So she’s the one who realizes it.

[Shep]
Oh.

[Emily]
While Steve is there.

[Shep]
Well, Steve is there, and that puts her in an awkward situation because when she starts putting all the pieces together, she’s like, “Oh, I’ve been complaining to Mark this whole time.”

[Emily]
Does she kind of ditch out on it then? Like, in the middle of the game? Because she’s, like, confused and embarrassed.

[Shep]
I don’t like that-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Even though that is a scene in so many of these movies.

[Emily]
Oh, I was just thinking that it would be what I personally would do. So, and it wasn’t even going with that. But yes, it is a scene in so many of these movies.

[Shep]
Whenever I see that scene, all I can think of is, “Oh, the writers couldn’t think of what to do with this character-“

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Right, right. Okay. Fair.

[Shep]
“So they had them leave the scene.”

[Emily]
Fair.

[Shep]
No, this is the climactic scene. So she figures it out.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
She wants Mark to figure it out.

[Thomas]
I liked the idea, I think, Emily, you said something about they keep bringing up that one of them got the book wrong. It was like an inside joke of theirs.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
They’re teasing.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
“Oh, it’s not this other book.”

[Emily]
Yeah. “Just know it’s not this.”

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
So she could make some comment that is that joke. I mean, how overt do you want her hinting to be? You say she wants Mark to figure it out on his own.

[Shep]
Or whatever, I don’t know.

[Emily]
I think she wants to send him the message, but because of the way they have been communicating, and now that she’s figured this out, she wants to kind of continue that, just playful, just this once, to get him to realize it, too. She wants to be playful enough that she would be, like, maybe the next question or whatever. She could just turn to him and say, because like maybe the category’s books, right? And she just turns to him and says, “Well, I know it’s not (blah, blah).”

[Thomas]
Oh, no. no, She says, she just says, whatever the name of the book is, that, she says that. And he goes, “It’s not that.” And looks at her. And she kind of gives him this look like, “I know.” And he’s like, “Oh.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And everyone else at their trivia group is like, “What are they? No, that’s not the book.”

[Emily]
Totally.

[Thomas]
Yeah. What book is this?

[Emily]
Yeah, exactly. And Steve’s just drinking his beer.

[Thomas]
They’re like, “No, it’s The Shining. Steve, write- Mark, write down The Shining. It’s-“

[Shep]
Oh, I like that you said Steve write down whatever.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then you see Steve write it down and she sees his handwriting.

[Thomas]
Yeah. I kind of like the conclusion of this or the rest of this scene is her sort of making faces at Mark like, “Okay, we’ve figured out it’s us. But fucking Steve is still here.”

[Emily]
How it doesn’t end?

[Thomas]
“What are going to do about this guy that you know I don’t really like? Help me get out of this.”

[Shep]
Does Mark figure it out? I because I hate to like be a stereotype, but so many times guys do not pick up on clues at all.

[Thomas]
There was the time that a woman, unprompted, gave me her number at a bar and I was like, “Well, she probably just wants to hang out”. You know, like I didn’t recognize what was going on. So we can talk ourselves out of things very easily.

[Emily]
Women do the same thing.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right, especially if she’s there with her date.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
You know, it would be funny is if she says that and he goes, “No, it’s not that.” And she kind of gives him a look and he goes, “But it’s funny you said that.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
And that’s just it. That’s the end of his thought.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Emily]
Like, he doesn’t even share why it’s funny. He’s just like, “Haha that’s funny that you said that.”

[Thomas]
So maybe after trivia, he’s just like, “Well, I’m going to go home now.”

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And she’s like, “Mark, you idiot.”

[Emily]
How does she ditch Steve, though? Because I don’t mind if it’s in this like event that they figured out and kiss or whatever rom-com thing we want them to do. But she’s got ditch Steve first.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
Oh, oh, gosh. No. Okay, I have a terrible idea, and as is tradition, I have to share it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Sure.

[Thomas]
Those are the rules.

[Shep]
The fourth person in their trivia group is Shannon.

[Emily]
Of course.

[Thomas]
Of course.

[Shep]
And Shannon and Steve hook up and ditch the two of them.

[Thomas]
That would be a very Shannon and Steve thing to do.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
It does seem like Shannon and Steve activity.

[Thomas]
And Steve is like, “Lily, I’m so sorry. It’s just not working out. You’re not what I was expecting.”

[Shep]
No, he wouldn’t even say it. She’d get a text.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, “Are they coming back from the bar? They went to get more drinks.”

[Thomas]
Right?

[Shep]
And then it’s just a text. Like, “Yeah, we’re leaving. Goodbye.” “He drove me here.”

[Emily]
I mean-

[Thomas]
I’m fine with that.

[Emily]
I don’t hate that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
I’m okay with it.

[Thomas]
It’s good because it makes the audience dislike them. So any qualms you might have-

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
It’s like, “Oh no, they’re horrible people. Forget them.”

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yeah, and then they’re clearly not in a relationship anymore. So she’s not cheating on Steve to be with Mark.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And also, they could, you know, if Steve really did drive her there, then she gets a ride home with Mark. She’s in the car with Mark. She’s, she’s still trying to get Mark to figure it out.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Because it’s great because guys are slow and dumb and they need it spelled out with words and not hints.

[Emily]
So she’s still trying to be cutesy and do the hints.

[Shep]
Yes. And he doesn’t figure it out and drops her off. And she gets out of the car, and is like, “I had this, built up this image in my mind of this puzzle master who’s so clever.”

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
“And it can’t be Mark. He didn’t figure out all the signals I sent.” And then as she’s walking up her steps, he gets out of his car. He’s like, “Ah, I got it! I got it!” Is that too cliché?

[Emily]
Maybe, but is it cute and heartwarming and makes you feel good? Yes.

[Thomas]
Well, what about her like resorting to just straight up showing him? Like, if what we’re saying is true. What we’re saying is true. Like. Guys are thick. People make up excuses in their head to wave, you know, hand wave things away. What if she’s like, “Look why don’t you walk me my door?”

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And he’s like, “Oh okay.” And so he does. And she’s like, “Just come in for a moment. I have something to show you.” And it’s like all of the work. She’s got like a table where she’s laid out all the stuff. And there are maybe, maybe it’s not the same one note that they’ve been writing on over and over again. There are, you know, new pieces of paper that they’ve been inserting into the books. And so she has old notes with his handwriting. And so she shows him like, “It’s us, dummy.”

[Emily]
I would like her… I don’t know. It’s probably dumb, but in my mind, it would be fun for her to come in and show him and be like, “Look, I’m playing this game. And these are the rules. And this is how it works. And see, you know, guy I’ve been messaging that I was telling you about. See, we’ve been leaving these notes and books with each other. And that’s how I’ve gotten this far.”

[Shep]
“What an amazing coincidence. I was also doing that with someone else.”

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah!

[Shep]
Have you guys ever read that old Reddit thread about realizing years later all the hints that you missed? A lot of them is, are women just spelling it out and guys still somehow not getting it.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
There’s one where a girl gets into his bed naked and he’s like, “Oh, she must be cold.” There’s one where she’s like, “How do I tell the guy that I like that I like him?” And he’s like, “Just say, ‘I like you’.” And she’s like, “I like you”. And he’s like, “Yeah, just like that to the guy.” And she’s like, “I like you.”

[Emily]
I seen-

[Shep]
And she’s like, he’s like, “You got it.”

[Thomas]
(Dies) It’s so-

[Shep]
It’s so relatable is the problem.

[Thomas]
It is. That’s the word I was looking for.

[Shep]
It sounds ridiculous, but this is so my personal experience as well.

[Thomas]
Oh no.

[Shep]
So.

[Thomas]
So yeah, I like her literally showing him his own note to him, and he’s like, “How do you have this?” She’s like, “Because it’s us, dumbass.” Like, “I’m the person you’ve been writing to.”

[Emily]
I like that she just says, “It’s us, dumbass.” Because maybe that’s how they were in their notes at the beginning, was that kind of needling.

[Thomas]
Oh right, harkens back to that like sort of competitive language they were using initially.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I like that. I feel like we have our plot pretty well figured out. Obviously, there are a bunch of details the writers will have to sort out, what specific books, and-

[Emily]
Look, we only have an hour.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
All right?

[Thomas]
Integrating the Dewey Decimal System in the clever numbers math-based puzzle that we suggested exists. But are there any other major details that we want or need to go over?

[Shep]
What was the external game that they’re both playing?

[Emily]
Good question, Shep. What was it?

[Shep]
Is there a prize? Is there- No, who suggested that? Why are they playing it? Is it just because it’s puzzles or is there a prize? I mean, for a movie that there would be a prize-

[Emily]
I think with a movie, it would have-

[Shep]
A trip to Hawaii or whatever.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Oh, right.

[Shep]
And then the post-credit scene is them wherever.

[Thomas]
On that trip. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
That makes sense. Sure. Let’s do that. works for me.

[Shep]
Not realistic, but that’s not the point of movies.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
No, no.

[Thomas]
No.

[Emily]
Where do they end up? It’s that island in the Caribbean, right?

[Thomas]
St. Bart’s?

[Emily]
St. Bart’s.

[Thomas]
That’s right. That’s our Steve of Islands, right?

[Shep]
Our go-to.

[Emily]
That’s our go-to.

[Thomas]
Well, we’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about the Dewey Decimal System. Was it a page turner, or should we put it back on the shelf? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. There are links to all of those at AlmostPlausible.com, where you can browse our catalog of previous episodes. For each episode, we publish a full transcript and provide links to the references we make. There is also additional information about the three of us, as well as ways you can support the show. Now that you’ve checked out the podcast, your due date is two weeks from now, when we expect you to return and join Emily, Shep, and I for the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Shep]
It’s so many in a row.

[Emily]
It’s the emphasis that gets me.

[Thomas]
I want to make sure people get it.

[Emily]
I know.