Dumb Thing #1
On Friday a nice young man came up to me at the reference desk. His question was: "Where is East?" " What building are you looking for?" sez I. "Not a building. I have to know East. For praying," sez he.
"Ah," thinks I, "it's Ramadan. He is a Muslim and wants to do his prayers right now."
"Well," sez I, "I'm not really sure which way the library faces. But," big smile from me, "I can find out. I just happen to have a little compass here in my pocketbook," fishing it out. (About 18 years ago I got this little compass from LL Bean, have always carried it, but rarely used it and never at work.). He looks over my shoulder as I open it up and align the red arrow to what I think is correct. I point confidently to a corner of the room. "That is East!" "Thank you," sez he and walks off.
A little later I tell a colleague about the interesting reference question. (We like to share these things) "Oh," she sez in an offhand way, "that's East," and points in an entirely different direction. "Are you sure?" sez I. "Yes, that's East," she assures me. I drop the subject.
A little later I sneak over to another colleague, open my little compass surreptitiously and ask, "do you know if it's the red arrow that points to the direction you want or is it the white arrow?"
She doesn't know.
A while later I casually ask another colleague about compasses in general. To illustrate I bring out mine. "That's cute," she sez. "What you do is turn it until the red arrow is on N for North and then every other direction is accurate. See? East is over there." I saw.
My answer to the boy had only been 90 degrees off.
Life keeps us humble.
(I hope the boy's prayers bounced off a building and headed in the right direction after all)
Dumb Thing #2
This morning I was driving along looking at trees and enjoying the wonderful weather when all of a sudden thunka-thunka, I realized I had driven over something. The rear view mirror told me that the thing was a squirrel which had been lying there. I'd had no time to swerve. UGGGHHH!!!! My insides shriveled. I drove over a squirrel corpse! My left tires must be dripping in gore. UGH-UGH. So of course I drove around looking for a puddle to drive through to clean them off, even though there was no smell. Soon I found a big puddle and spent a minute driving back and forth in it. There, I thought, they must be clean now, and I drove off. But in a little while I began to smell an awful odor of decay. I had to close the windows even though the air was delightful after the storm.
Now I'm thinking that puddle must have had more in it than just water ... like 3 dead squirrels, a skunk and 6000 worms!
Ya can't win!
Dumb Thing #3
And yesterday I had to ....
No, I can't go on. Two's enough for now.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
59j9003hCan't comment on thing #1 but in thing #2 you would have gotten quite a few thunka-thunka's if there were 3 squirrels and a skunk in the puddle as you went back and forth.
(( laughing )) I can just see an ethereal prayer bouncing off a handy wall and heading out into space in the corrected direction - prayers have a way of doing that for us!
(( empathy )) I cringed for you at that ominous thunka-thunka. I am so careful about keeping an eye out for poor critters - they just aren't programmed to understand and recognize the danger in auto speeds - hope that oder hoses off easily - where's a car wash when you need one?
(( more laughing )) I don't blame you one bit for balking - 2 in one day is more than enough for one's admiring public ....
I empathize with the directional confusion. I once got lost in the woods right next to my house & by sheer luck finally found a pipeline to follow back to the road after about an hour or so of wandering..sheesh.
One rainy evening when Dad was teaching me how to drive a stick shift I almost gave him apoplexy...there were seemingly hundreds of frogs in the road and I was swerving cautiously around them. He asked me what in Sam's Hill I was doing & when I explained...well, I'll let you imagine his response... :P
When it comes to stink
you weren't in the pink...
'Cause you found a puddle
that wasn't so subtle...
Alas the tires! Oh no the trunk!
Everything reeks, gads what a funk!
Too late to choose another way to drive...
If only that squirrel were still alive!
Hope tomorrow goes much smoother :)
What is 59j9003h?
puddle/subtle...that's good.
Unfortunately I do know what it is but I didn't remember it being there when I wrote or sent that comment. For purposes of this blog it means nothing.
Post a Comment