Drive-By Compliment Surprises Grad Student; Light at End of Tunnel Glimpsed

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

At the main library on campus, there are a couple of older men who have been hired by the university to sit by the entrance/exit, keeping watch over the comings and goings of the various library patrons. As far as I can tell, making change for the photocopiers and listening to hockey games on the radio seem to be the extent of their official duties, but they’re all really pleasant, and it’s always comforting to be wished a good evening before I have to trudge to my car through miles upon miles of snow.

Anyways, I’d picked up a couple of specially-ordered books from the interlibrary loan department today, books I have to read by Wednesday because the department screwed up my e-mail address and never notified me that they had actually arrived, and the librarian warned me that they might set the alarm off as I left. So I handed them to the man working at the exit, and proceeded through the detector. As he handed them back to me, he said, completely out of the blue…

“Thank you, sir. You are a true scholar and a gentleman.”

Guess who felt damn cool plodding to his car today. :cool:

2

Hmmm…I’m picturing you in a suit and bow-tie, looking very nineteenth century, doffing your cap to the old man as you pass through the detectors.

Pretty sweet. As a fellow grad student (although not a gentleman), I think that’s a great compliment to get. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that someone else (or heck, even someone) out there thinks all this education is worthwhile.

3

Heh…I felt like I was in the nineteenth century, or else some similarly long-forgotten time when random strangers actually took notice of each other, communicating with more than monosyllabic grunts and suspicious glances.

I just wish I could’ve come up with an appropriate response. Something like “And a cheery evening to you as well, old bean! Tally ho!”