Darting, Not The Good Kind

"Ech, not another library post," Jonah said. "I thought you were going to blog about Pat. Pat!"

"Sorry," I said. I stood over Jonah as he read this post. "There's been a lot of drama around here, so I thought another post was warranted."

"Wait. This just said what I just said."

"Sorry," I said. I stood over Jonah as he read this post. "There's been a lot of..."

"Wait, shut up. It says There's been a lot of drama around here, Jonah said. I didn't say that? Did I?"

"No, the blog did."

"'Ech, not another library post Jonah said not another library post Jonah said,'"' Greg said,'"'"" Pat said.'"

"Look," I said Greg said, "don't worry about it. Just go back and read LIBRARY The Novel. Go to the scene where you're reading about yourself about yourself reading about this blog post that you're reading."

"Wha..."

We both turned around... slowly.

Karen called me into the office. She had no patience for pomo trickery, and besides it was time for us to have another fight. Because what's a library without fightin'??

We sat across from each other. The door was shut, the oscillating fan was on to ineffectually block the sound of our shrill voices, and WORLD'S BEST BOSS coffee mug was on the desk.

"So, ah, how are you?" I said.

"I'm fine," she said, clipped, terse.

"Really?"

"I'm fine."

Then she admitted she was having some stress about her recent car accident and that she had to drive a "shitty" rental around, the kind of car that cast dubious light on the driver.

"She's a native! GET HER"

Otherwise everything was super. I hesitantly brought up that perhaps she was overdoing it with the, ah, micro... managing?

"What! Who's saying that? Who! Give me names!"

"Well... me?"

"You!"

I listed the lady's micro-crimes. Many of them revolved around "darting." We were doing a reference survey and Karen had rented a plane to drop thousands of fliers all over the library and surrounding county. The messages wanted us to remember to "dart" and to surrender. She also emailed the staff about darting, and called a meeting about darting, and taped signs to my locker about darting, and reminded me about darting as she darted past me in traffic and threw darts at me about darting. I assured her I was darting to the max, but apparently the quantity of my darting wasn't sufficient for her taste. (Please ignore the urban dictionary definition.) I was feeling defeated. Could my own Treaty of Versailles be far off?

(Maybe I should audition for an E.D. commercial?)

Karen confessed that maybe she was overdoing it. Then we turned our attention to R. and the thorny question of interpretation, especially when it came to race and

[REDACTED]

Voice hoarse from shouting, I left the office and came back to the desk. I was about to tell Jonah what had happened, but he held up his hand.

"No need," he said. "I'm reading LIBRARY."

I turned around... slowly.