Our city's library, while not as forgiving fine-wise as the Oregon system with whom I had a brief affair, was (in my childhood) and is (in my adult childhood) a fantastic free service, and yesterday I had an encounter there that gave me a huge chuckle. After checking out my books (or more often dvds, truth be told), the librarian normally will inform me of the date the items are due back by listing an important birthday or event. The conversation typically goes thusly -
Book-checker-outer: "These are due back on Blankdy-Blank's birthday."
Trespasser's Thoughts: "Who-the-hey?"
Trespasser's Words: "Oh, excellent. I didn't know it was coming up. Wow."
BCO: "Yes. We're so grateful for his/her/their/Russia's great work."
I naïvely assumed that working in a library equated possessing all the knowledge found therein, and always felt embarrassed to ask more about the author or event in question. I guess I just was feeling frisky yesterday, because our chat had a satisfactorily equalizing effect -
BCO: "These are due back on Sid Fleischman's birthday."
Trespasser's Words: "Who-the hey?"
Trespasser's Thoughts: "What are you DOING? Are you trying to look stupid?"
BCO: "Oh, um... (covertly consults hidden paper) he's an author?"
Trespasser's Thoughts: "WHAAT!?! This man who may very well have gotten this job right out of high school is not the fountain of knowledge I assumed he was?"
Trespasser's Words: (silent, small shrug, bemused smile)
BCO: "Hmm... (cheat-sheet-peek) it's also the day chemist Albert Hoffman discovered the effects of LSD."
Now that's something I can relate to.
6 responses:
by and by...
"Oh, yeah. I don't need you to send me the address of your blog anymore but thanks."
:)
Really? You just dashed years of (blissfully unfounded) admiration of librarians.
Huh. The link claiming your ability to relate to discovering the effects of LSD went right back to you telling us that you don't do drugs. So do you or don't you? Or were you on something when you wrote this and didn't realize?
Val, I honestly don't remember writing this.
Jem, Sid Fleischman writes marvelous children's books! His sense of humor tickles my funny bone and his writing skill is accomplished though not necessarily masterful. One of his books earned a Newberry Award. We Hancocks are particularly fond of the tall "McBroom" tales that he spins. And as if all of his many books did not feather his cap sufficiently, his progeny, Paul, is a capable author, too, and wrote one of my favorite pictures books, Westlandia.
You gotta love those Handcocks
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