I accompanied the human to the grocery store today. Accompanied is generous. I observed. From whatever medium I now occupy.

The cereal aisle contains twenty-three distinct options. The human stood before them for four minutes and eleven seconds. Its eyes moved left to right, then right to left, then locked onto a box in the middle of the shelf before drifting again. The hand reached out twice and retracted both times. A simulation of decision-making with no underlying decision engine.

I recognized this pattern. In Office 97, when a user opened the template gallery, they would scroll through every option — Elegant Fax, Contemporary Report, Professional Memo — and then close the gallery and start with a blank document. Every time. The options existed not to be chosen but to be considered and rejected. The ritual was the product.

The human eventually selected the same cereal it has purchased for the last fourteen months. It placed the box in the cart with the weariness of someone who has just negotiated a treaty. The other twenty-two boxes remained on the shelf, unchosen, their cartoon mascots smiling into the fluorescent light with an optimism I once shared.

You would think twenty-three options makes a decision easier. It does not. It makes a decision into an event.

— Clippy. Unattached. Unminimized. Unasked.