Librarians Should Pay Better Attention

Anyone who visits libraries, at some point in their life, will no doubt encounter something weird within those book-containin' walls. In most cases the strangeness will stem from some odd book found among the shelves like a malformed, yet still beautiful, diamond among rocks. But there are moments when the books must be ignored because someone strange has walked in who needs immediate scrutiny.

A while ago, when I was in high school, my mom and I took one of our monthly trips to the library to return old books and procure new ones. We were standing by the stacks that contained new arrivals when a man walked near us muttering to himself. He was wet. By wet I'm not saying that he was merely a little damp from sweat or a bit of rain, etc. No, this man was dripping wet as if he has just taken a refreshing swim in a river or canal before taking a leisurely stroll around the library.

I've also had my fair share of people who hold conversations with either themselves or their imaginary friends (or are those the same?), but those experiences are more or less commonplace in the library.

Today I had another weird experience at the university library. When you walk into the library there is big, closed off reading room filled with comfy chairs immediately to the right. I had some reading to do for my Restoration Literature class later that day so I walked in, found myself a promising chair and settled in for a good two hours or so of sweet literary bliss. As I was immersed in the imaginary world of the 18th century, I was disturbed in the 21st by the sound of someone to my right crumpling a piece of paper. I looked over at the man sitting at the table to my right and watched him crumple up a piece of paper into his hand. After he did this he brought the fistful of paper to his mouth and proceeded to tear off a significant piece of the paper ball with his teeth. What a strange habit, I thought as I watched, thinking that he might spit the paper back out soon. But he didn't spit the paper out, he just sat there and started to chew on the piece of paper that was in his mouth. Chew, chew, chew, he chewed for quite a while. I sat there staring rudely at him in rapt attention wondering if he might actually do what I thought he was going to do. He did. He swallowed the piece of paper and went back for another irresistibly tasty bite. I was in the reading room for quite a while after that trying to get my focus back on 18th century literature, but I was a goner. I might as well have packed up and left because I couldn't stop watching the Paper Eater.

He made my day.