SOLVED. Science fiction story - challenge to never move a salt shaker. [s]

[Andy]

Back in 1981 or so, I read part of a collection of short stories of the department store bookrack (back in the day, even a small department store would have a significant book section, with a large variety of books). One story was about an alien (or demon?) arguing that humans aren't very good at commitment. The human disagrees - so the demon/alien challenges him to make sure that the salt shaker on the kitchen table never get moved again. This is a trivial task, but the alien is sure that the human won't be able to do it. The human (guy) gets more and more obsessed with the project, worrying about whether vibrations from traffic are jostling it, etc. All comes to naught in some way (his family had moved it from time to time without letting him know?). If I were to guess I'd say it was a collection of Gordon Dickson stories, but I'm not sure.

[Michele]

Pretty sure this is Neanderthal Planet. The story is "Intangibles, Inc." (see description on Wikipedia).

[Andy]

Thank you so much. That's got to be it (I found excerpts online).

[Michele]

Yay!