Corner

There is a longtime volunteer here at my library that I have written about before. Due to what I guess one would call developmental disabilities, her repertoire has certain limitations. Nevertheless she is very affable and I'm always happy to see her. Mostly what she says to me involves "the corner". She seems to have a wide definition of what constitutes a corner; a section of the cubicle where we process requests and answer phones, a computer over by the printer, or even occasional areas that just happen to be in the general vicinity of a wall. And what she says to me by way of introduction is something like:

"What are you doin' in the corner! You're in the corner again!" 


This is unless I am somewhere that cannot be considered by her to be a corner, in which case she says:


"You're out of the corner! Who let you out of the corner?" 


My disabilities are different than hers. And I am not keen to repeat witticisms. So one day our conversation goes like this:



Her: "What are you doin' in the corner! You're in the corner again!"
Me: "I know! I'm like a spider or something!"


And the next day it goes like this:


Her: "You're out of the corner! Who let you out of the corner?"
Me: "Thank God! I was starting to mildew!"


And the next day it goes like this:



Her: "What are you doin' in the corner! You're in the corner again!"
Me: "You think this is a corner? You should see the corner they just let me out of!"


And then the next day our conversation goes like this:


Her: "You're out of the corner! Who let you out of the corner?"
Me: "I finally found the right palms to grease."


And on and on it goes. 


Part of me worries that one day I'm going to run out of new responses, that one day she'll say something about the corner and I'll just stand there stammering. But the greater part of me understands that it doesn't so much matter what I say. I merely need to play my part.







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