The average typewriter weighs around fifteen point six pounds. I don’t know how many typewriters the average museum has, but this one had 863. They were all stacked in neat rows on shelving units in one area of the attic (minus the 36 on display) over approximately 25 square feet. The floor beneath the units had always been a little creaky, but no one had given much thought to the load limit of the floor joists beneath the units.

Minerva certainly hadn’t. When she moved five typewriters from a shelf unit near the wall to one closer to the center of the room, it was the furthest thing from her mind. She was too busy thinking about how her back was going to be aching later and what she should make for dinner later. Sure the floor had complained under her weight, but it always did that. The building was nearly 100 years old.

At her desk on the floor below, Minerva didn’t hear the warning groans of snapping wood over the sound of her headphones. She noticed when the first piece of tin ceiling hit her desk, but by then it was too late.

Typewriters fell, Minerva died.