Someone called and asked me if I could locate a definition of 'listicle.' She read the word in the newspaper but it wasn't in her print dictionary. It wasn't in most of our dictionaries either, but it does have a Wikipedia article. Fortunately, she was willing to accept an online, user-sourced source!
She is patron of the day, probably because there is so little competition--I asked a frustrated woman trying to release her print job if there was anything I could do to help her, and she said "Yes, watch my kids!" When I said, "I'm sorry, I can't do that" she said "Then there's nothing you can do to help!"
Another patron asked me a lot of questions about printing and using the library, all phrased as statements but with intonation indicating it was a question: "I can check out books here?" "I need to enter my number?" As soon as he walked away from the desk, another patron, carrying a long strip of paper and a peeled twig (a wand?) came up to tell me: "That man's behavior seems kind of suspicious. I mean, not suspicious, I don't think he'd hurt anyone, but odd. Abnormal." I managed to reply with "Well, this is a public library, we get all sorts of people" instead of "Nice to meet you, Mr. Pot-Calling-The-Kettle." Then he talked to me for 10 minutes about how the American education system is broken and he never finished high school ("There were a few incidents and I never went back.").
There are only 7 copies of this book in WorldCat. Any chance you can get one for me?
I always rely on the judgments of people carrying peeled twigs to tell me who's weird and who's not.
ReplyDeleteI know, right?
Delete"I am in the library?" "You are the librarian?" "You have books here?" "I'm annoying?"
ReplyDeletewas there any writing on the long strip of paper? enquiring minds want to know
ReplyDeleteeven though there was that study where Wikipedia came out pretty well compared to the Encyclopedia Britannica it still feels weird to rely on it
ReplyDelete