Going to the Library

Roanoke has seriously grown on me this summer. It is beautiful. The mountains are prominent and hike-able. People smile and say hello and are teaching me something about the art of small talk. They bring their dogs to cafes and let you play catch with them. All is grand.



However. i had a very depressing Roanoke experience today. As you might know, I went to a college...well, not in Boston, just outside of it, actually...no, not Tufts! At this college, there is a library called Widener, and it has the 3rd largest collection of books in the US. (After the Library of Congress and the Boston Public Library.) Therefore, when I searched for a book, the library had it. No matter what book I searched for, I could be holding it in my feverish little hands THAT VERY DAY. Even if it was written in 1834 and wasn't in English. This was so wonderful I sometimes crossed myself while entering the library...I COULDN'T HELP IT, IT WAS THAT AMAZING.



Anyway. the point is, today I got a Roanoke Public Library card. I was very excited. I ran right over to the computer to search the catalog, with my list of "books to read!!!" in hand. The first book I searched was LOLITA. YOU MAY HAVE HEARD OF IT. However, the Main Library did not carry a copy. I searched about 300 more books. They had about 3. (Please note I am doing that thing where I lie to make it a better story.) Finally i just walked over to the fiction section..................................



IT WAS THE SIZE OF MY BED.

I LOOKED AT EVERY FICTION BOOK THEY HAD IN UNDER 30 MINUTES.

I felt like Christina Aguilera in that part of Burlesque where she goes, in a way that screams "I practiced this line in my trailer a thousand times":


"ARE YOU KIDDING ME."
(Which, coincidentally, is what I feel Burlesque should actually have been called.)

As I wandered this "section" with a cloud of doom and gloom gathering over my head, losing heart with each Dan Brown title I passed, I heard two people whisper-fighting out of sight and around the corner.

"You listen to me," the man whisper-hissed.

"No, YOU listen to ME," whisper-screamed the woman.

Neither of them listened. This escalated until I heard a barrage of thundering footsteps and looked over to see the man running down the staircase for the exit, with the woman yelling after him, "YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A SPERM DONOR!"

And with that I took my books to the front counter.

WORD COUNT: 39, 511

(I know, this is not super-much-higher than last time. I went on an editing spree and cut a lot. There's a lot of new/replaced words here. Kind of like cells in a human body. Or water in a toilet bowl. Whichever.)