we hold things but not forever.....

Customer: I ordered some books that are suppose to be in.
Me: Okay, and the name?

I look up the order and find out they came in in August.

Me: It looks like they arrived August 10. We called a number of times but since they were not picked up in over 4weeks they were put back out for sale.
Customer: I thought you would hold them for us.
Me: We did. After 4weeks we have to assume that no one is coming to pick them up.
Customer: But we don't come into town all the time.
Me: It's November. It's been 3 months. We have to have a cut off as to how long we hold things or we'd end up overrun.
Customer: Well we were coming for it.
Me: You could have called us and we could have arranged mailing them or having an extra hold time if we knew you were going to be coming.
Customer: Oh well I didn't know.



What's that saying about common sense not being common?