say what?!

Category: dribblings

may i nerd-out for a moment?

guy comes in to the ‘brary. he’s a semi-regular patron. he’s crazy. pretty much he’s lost his mind, i don’t know how. and most often? drunk. drunky-drunk with the breath of booze.

he’s never rude or anything, just kinda talky. mostly he talks to himself. loudly.

we don’t have a nickname for him. yet. i’m sure we could come up with something.

ANYway. my story is this:

he finally picks out 4 books to check out and three of them are Lincoln bios. normally, i’d make him put one back but we have tons of Lincoln books and also the less i have to say to him the shorter his stay in the ‘brary will be. he starts talking to me about the bios and says, “i’m going to read up on Lincoln again.”

“good choice,” i say, for i, too, am a fan. and really, if someone checks out a book on Lincoln i’ll admit it, i’m always pleased. i don’t know why.

“well, i’m gettig this one by Sandburg, but i also wanted to get this one by this other guy because well, let’s face it, Sandburg is a hack.”

*insert record scratch noise here*

“…um…”

“yeah, and this other guy, it says here he’s won a Pulitzer prize.”

“…” 

“so i’m definitely gonna read that one.”

don’t speak, jaimie.  don’t say a word. let the man go. there’s no need to-

“did you just say Carl Sandberg was a… a hack?”

“what?”

“Carl Sandburg? the poet? THE FOREMOST LINCOLN BIOGRAPHER? THE ONE WHO, I’M NEARLY CERTAIN, WON ONE OF HIS THREE PULITZER PRIZES FOR HIS FOUR VOLUME LINCOLN BIOGRAPHY?! THAT CARL SANDBURG? this is the man you are calling A HACK?”

of course i didn’t say that to his face. it’s just what i thought in my head. rule of thumb when dealing with crazy drunks: do not engage. EVEN WHEN YOU REALLY WANT TO BECAUSE WHO THE HELL GETS AWAY WITH CALLING SANDBURG A HACK?!

am i right?

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