Monday, March 5, 2018

People of the book








It was a usually busy Saturday at the library, and then the snow started falling heavily outside and everything slowed down to a half speed. About that time all kinds of people started showing up to prepare the library for that evening's annual gala event, an after hours fundraiser for the Friends of the Library. Usually they have a theme for this event. Once it was spies. Another year it was "The Great Gatsby". This year I couldn't grasp the theme at first. One person was maybe dressed as a ladybug. The retired friends of the library director was dressed as the statue of liberty. I made a point of going over to her in our back room at some point and saying "Uh, hi. It seems there are some tired, poor, huddled masses at the front desk asking if they can see you."

She laughed politely.

That's all I ask.

Usually.

Around that time, in the big program room, a bottle of alcohol that was going to be part of some silent auction, exploded. I heard about this from my manager who was much involved in cleaning it up. As you might imagine it was a fantastic mess, on carpet, with bits of glass, but good smelling. First my manager said it was a bottle of wine. Since it exploded I wondered if it might be champagne. Then later he said it was Scotch! 

More people arrived with decorations. There were dozens and dozens of helium balloons, mainly in blue and white, with a bit of gold. The blue was a peculiar one, a shade of blue my wife had just the other day charmingly called "jewish blue". I'd never heard that before, but it was perfect. These balloons were all jewish blue! Then they started decorating tables and it was all in jewish blue and white. It looked like they were getting ready for a big Seder!

"If I'd known this year's theme was "Jews" and they were serving scotch, I totally would have bought tickets!" I cried. But no one seemed too amused because none of them were Jewish, which made me a bit sad.

When I investigated it turned out it wasn't scotch that exploded, rather a growler of beer, which was not a good understanding of their party's theme of "Jews". It should, of course, have been sweet wine. Then the decorated tables started giving me Passover flashbacks and I had an urge to look around for a hidden matzah. Finally, as the whole library started to look like the Israeli flag, to the apparent ignorance of dozens upon dozens of gentiles, I was completely relieved to note that, may his name be praised, it was five o' clock and time for me to go home.

Home, where, thankfully, I am understood.











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