10 november

As it turns out, the library has been undergoing a continuous improvement process. (Who hasn’t, right? I mean. Maybe I haven’t. Maybe that’s the issue. But that’s ideal, right?)

YOU SAY RIGHT A LOT.

So, what you’re talking back to me now? That’s not cool.

OH, SO THIS IS CONTINUALLY FIRST PERSON? WHAT DOES THAT MAKE ME, SECOND PERSON? AM I RIGHT?

Rude.

CAN WE MOVE ON HERE?

Is this going to be happening a lot? Can I help you?

“Can I help you?”

“Can I help you?” I answer back, possibly a little more forcefully than necessary. Definitely more attitude than expected by the young man with the dark pony tail. He’s probably in eleventh grade and volunteering here for National Honor Society hours. And I’ve just randomly snapped at him. Well, not snapped, but.

“Um.” It’s a fair answer. Smart.

“No, yes. I’m sorry.”

He waits me out. Not just smart. Character. Service. Leadership. Scholarship. Bam.

“So, yeah,” I pull it together. “I was here looking at the card catalog the other day, and I saw this card that was out of order—“

“Did you tell anyone?” He seems really concerned. It occurs to me that he might have been the one responsible for keeping the cards in the right order. Bad move on my part. Why did I say that?

“No, no, it’s my fault, I didn’t say anything. I realize, I should have said something,” lame, fumble.

He nods, serious, though impossible to read. Clouds across his eyes? Fear of possible repercussions for his poor sense of the alphabet? Disdain for my inaction? Hadn’t I also been a National Honor Society member, and not just a member, but also the president of my very own school’s chapter? Yellow rose? Noblesse oblige? Seriously. How could I have fallen so far as to leave a card catalog card in the wrong place? I ought to be duly Dewey decimated.

“Well, the important thing is that you found what you were looking for in the first place,” he offers, a token. “You did find it, right?”

Ug. Now I have to lie, too?

“Well, I was really just browsing…”

Is that disappointment?

“But I did find a few things later…”

A glimmer of potential partial redemption?

Maybe it’s the kid’s apparent Indian heritage that gives him this hard-to-read façade. Maybe I’m just unusually sensitive. Maybe both. Anyway, I’m not here to be judged.

“So, the thing is, I found this card the other day, and now it’s not there at all. And the book that the card goes with isn’t even in the online catalog!”

I’m not sure that he’s too overwhelmed with the intrigue of the situation. To his great credit, he doesn’t physically shrug.