...and I mean everything! Today, the Penn bookstore held a story hour for the local kiddies featuring Winnie-the-Pooh. The girl designated to play Pooh Bear was late, and so naturally they called on me (Old Faithful, they used to call me during the war years) to put on the furry-backed costume and the giant bear head that smelled of piss, stand by Chris as she read the story, and greet the kiddies afterward with a wave here, a hug there, a handshake everywhere...
I think I've found my calling. I can't wait to tell my parents, for I'm sure they'll understand why their daughter put away a career in medicine or law or research for this, and they'll be very happy for her, I am certain of it!
Putting away the sarcasm- as well as the image of the initially uncomprehending, then horrified looks on my parents' faces were I to tell them such a dastardly thing, though, I actually had a lot of fun playing Winnie-the-Pooh. I think, there's a dormant "class clown" part of me that enjoys getting laughs and being silly and stupid in front of a crowd. And the kids were so so cute!
Afterward, Emily walked me out of the children's corner, and I said to her, still dressed in the Pooh Bear attire, "Now where's my cigarette?" And then, I proceeded to knock out a customer who was getting off the elevator with one swift, furry punch, pick up her fallen merchandise (which happened to include the book: How to Avoid Getting Mugged By a Friendly Bear), and run out of the store into the bright afternoon sunlight.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Friday, September 08, 2006
Flatland: A Mystery of Many Dimensions
I was shelving books at work today-yesterday, when I came across a copy of "Flatland" by Edwin Abbott. I know the inventory of books pretty well by now, if I do say so myself, and I happened to know that we were supposed to have 5 copies of Flatland, but when I went to shelve the loose copy, I noticed that there were already 5 on the shelf.
Mystere!
I thought the Bookmaster (BM; computer program that tells you the number of each book the store has in stock) was mistaken, and so I shelved the loose copy and changed the number in the BM from 5 to 6.
A few hours later, I came back from lunch, and guess what lay innocently on the desk, but another copy of "Flatland"! Maybe someone picked it up, but decided against buying it and didn't put it back in its proper place, that bastard! I thought. And so I picked up the loose copy and went to shelve it, only to find that there were already 6 copies on the shelf!
Double mystere!
By now, I was slightly freaked out because I knew that "Flatland" was about 2-dimensional shapes discovering higher dimensional space, and here before my very eyes, the stockpile of Flatland copies was growing- or under my nose, since I didn't know what or who was causing the growth. They were like stubborn weeds, cropping up in random corners of the Bookiverse in unwanted numbers.
What could I do but shelve the 7th copy and change the number in the BM from 6 to 7?
Now, I'd like to say that this mysterious increase continued until we were up to our ears in copies of Abbott's sci-fi classic because that would certainly heighten the tension and mystery and absurdity of the situation, but in truth, this bookstore mystery, at least, was solved pretty soon after the 2nd extra copy was found.
Turns out that "Flatland" had been assigned as a reading for some Penn course, and so students thinking about taking the course were bringing down copies of the book from the Textbooks section and leaving them around the store, inadvertantly creating a strange scavenger hunt of sorts.
For a while, though, I couldn't tell which side of the looking glass I was on. I was living the written word. Bookstore life is so damnably exciting.
This incident reminds me of the time we were hunting around for 3 missing copies of "The Book Thief". Come to think of it, I don't think we ever recovered those...
Mystere!
I thought the Bookmaster (BM; computer program that tells you the number of each book the store has in stock) was mistaken, and so I shelved the loose copy and changed the number in the BM from 5 to 6.
A few hours later, I came back from lunch, and guess what lay innocently on the desk, but another copy of "Flatland"! Maybe someone picked it up, but decided against buying it and didn't put it back in its proper place, that bastard! I thought. And so I picked up the loose copy and went to shelve it, only to find that there were already 6 copies on the shelf!
Double mystere!
By now, I was slightly freaked out because I knew that "Flatland" was about 2-dimensional shapes discovering higher dimensional space, and here before my very eyes, the stockpile of Flatland copies was growing- or under my nose, since I didn't know what or who was causing the growth. They were like stubborn weeds, cropping up in random corners of the Bookiverse in unwanted numbers.
What could I do but shelve the 7th copy and change the number in the BM from 6 to 7?
Now, I'd like to say that this mysterious increase continued until we were up to our ears in copies of Abbott's sci-fi classic because that would certainly heighten the tension and mystery and absurdity of the situation, but in truth, this bookstore mystery, at least, was solved pretty soon after the 2nd extra copy was found.
Turns out that "Flatland" had been assigned as a reading for some Penn course, and so students thinking about taking the course were bringing down copies of the book from the Textbooks section and leaving them around the store, inadvertantly creating a strange scavenger hunt of sorts.
For a while, though, I couldn't tell which side of the looking glass I was on. I was living the written word. Bookstore life is so damnably exciting.
This incident reminds me of the time we were hunting around for 3 missing copies of "The Book Thief". Come to think of it, I don't think we ever recovered those...
Early Morning Ambiguities/Crazy People at the Grocery Store
I was moseying down the cereal aisle at frogro yesterday when suddenly this middle-aged black man came down the aisle yelling "Life! Life! I need life! Where's life? Life, life!" with incredible vigor. When he reached me, I replied, "You're living it!"
Turns out, he was just looking for the cereal.
An employee showed him the row of Life cereals, and the Crazy Man said "What's it doing way over here?" "It's a long story," replied the employee, helplessly.
Was the employee talking about the cereal or his life? Okay, probably his cereal, but I thought the whole thing was bizarre and funny and bloggable.
Turns out, he was just looking for the cereal.
An employee showed him the row of Life cereals, and the Crazy Man said "What's it doing way over here?" "It's a long story," replied the employee, helplessly.
Was the employee talking about the cereal or his life? Okay, probably his cereal, but I thought the whole thing was bizarre and funny and bloggable.
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