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.