It was an oddly synchronous kind of day, today.
My best example: This afternoon a college-aged girl came into the library. She was dressed in her best Brittany On Her Off Day
blue-jeans and tight hoodie over pastel shirt ensemble, complete with
extra makeup. She said she'd been in last week and was told that all of
our dream-interpretation books were checked out and overdue. She wanted
to know if they had been returned yet. I knew the answer even before I
looked `em up on the OPAC. Sure enough, still very much out and very
much overdue.
"We do have a couple in our reference room," I offered.
"No. Yew can't check them out," she said. She left, disappointed.
Having missing or otherwise checked out dream dictionaries is nothing strange. They're harder to keep on the shelf than The Da Vinci Code. The
patrons who want them never EVER want to simply look up stuff in our
reference books on the subject. No, they want a book, or better still
BOOKS, they can haul away and pour over for months on end. And they
ALWAYS keep them for months on end. After all, it's not like they're
going to stop dreaming! There's always a new dream coming down the ol'
brain pipe that will require intensive interpretation and consarnit
they'd better have a book, or better still BOOKS, on hand to make with
the interpretin'. You practically have to have a court order and a
crowbar to pry them out of their sweaty little hands. Well, almost
always...
Fifteen minutes after the first girl left, a
second girl came in and returned ALL of our dream dictionaries. I was so
astounded, I forgot to charge her a fine.
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