Wisdom In the Stacks

Marina: I can’t find a shallow little divided dish for under my monitor to put my rubber bands and paper clips in. You know? They’re all these big things with pen holders attached, and I don’t want that.

Me: Hmmm, maybe a little baby food divider dish?

Marina: I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe.

Me: Where did you look?

Marina: Target. I went to MULTIPLE Targets.

Me: Try Office Max. Or, of course, Amazon.

Marina: Yeah, I SHOULD try Amazon. Amazon has everything!

Me: You know, yesterday I had a woman come in and she insisted there was this book, by this author, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I suggested the title was wrong, the author was wrong, etc., and she swore up and down that it was all right. I checked Amazon and there was no such creature, so I said to her, “Ma’am, Amazon doesn’t have it listed so it’s pretty much not out there.”

Marina: I know! What did we do before Amazon?

Me: We wasted all our life looking for stuff all over the place and overpaying!

Marina: That’s right! If it’s not on Amazon, you’re just out of luck, lady.

Me: Exactly! AA! MUH! ZON! C’mon, people. There is nothing more definitive. Have you not heard of Amazon? Have you not used Amazon? Sit down. I will show you the way to enlightenment.

Marina: I have a friend who is waiting for the day when he can order all his groceries from Amazon and they’ll just show up automatically every month and charge his credit card.

Me: That is probably not too far off.

Marina: You can already do it with some things.

Me: That’s right. Because it’s Amazon. AA! MUH! ZON! Get with it.

* * *

Last night I had the following conversation with my coworker.

Me: Oh, all that drilling in Circ is them putting up the AED device on the wall. I forgot to mention.

Coworker: The what?

Me: AED. You know? With the paddles? CLEAR! [holding hands like the paddles] Ka-chunk! A defibrillator.

Coworker: Hahaha, ka-chunk! Sounds scary.

Me: Oh, it is!

Coworker: Hey, did you see the pictures of the people who won the Ugly Shirt Contest?

Me: Yeah.

Coworker: They weren’t that ugly!

Last week the Sunshine Committee sponsored an Ugly Shirt Contest, and being the Gloomy Committee, I wore a plain, nondescript coral shirt and didn’t participate. There weren’t many participants, and when the winners were announced with a photo accompanyment, we all scratched out heads because the ugly shirts weren’t so ugly after all. Well, one one heinous, but that’s because it was her husband’s shirt.

Me: I think a lack of participants kinda guaranteed that whatever these people wore, they were going to win.

Coworker: Well, that makes more sense. What did they win?

Me: I... I don’t remember. Maybe they won a free Jeans Day pass. Or a restaurant gift card. Something like that.

Coworker: So, speaking of which, this policy on wearing jeans on Friday, is that for real?

Me: Yeah, I hate it. I worked a Friday recently and was going out after, so I didn’t want to have to change, and I paid the $1 to be able to wear jeans on Friday. Sigh...

Coworker: OHMYGOD, I would never pay a buck to be able to wear jeans to work! Is anyone else doing this?

Me: Yeah, that’s what got me. I paid my $1 and [clerk] took my cash, and she too was wearing jeans, and had paid her dollar. Marina did the same. I was really hoping I’d be the only one stupid enough to do it so after a month or two they’d scrap the $1 charge because no one was paying it. But, dammit, people are paying it!

Coworker: What would they do if I wore jeans and didn’t pay my $1?

Me: Well, that’s part of the dress code. You’d be considered insubordinate then.

Coworker: Are they going to write me up?

Me: Maybe they’ll send you home and make you change! WOOHOO!

Coworker: Maybe they’ll hit me with the paddles -- KA-CHUNK -- knock me out, and I’ll wake up a while later and my jeans will be gone. Instead I’ll have on someone else’s ugly pants.

Me: Maybe you’ll win for Ugly Pants Day then!

Coworker: Maybe I’ll just pay my dollar.