A vociferous homeless dude, cleaner than most, seeks me out in the stacks.
"Hey man, I'm homeless and I only have a dollar. The library's closed today. Do you have any books for a dollar?"
"There's a dollar cart inside the door."
"Nah, I didn't see anything on the quarter cart."
"That's outside the door- the dollar cart is inside."
"Oh! Oh man! Look at that! Oh!"
I went back to shelving as he waxed rhapsodic, his stream of consciousness trailing after me into the next room.
He scared off a couple of people with his babbling before he found a winner.
In the interest of moving him efficiently along the path of his day I asked for a dollar even, ignoring Ahnuld's share.
He insisted on tipping me with a monolog.
I responded with the sort of dead eyed disinterest only a veteran of the retail wars can muster.
"Y'know, this book is really interesting, I mean look at the size of the type- it's really big. I think that's fascinating, because he's Eastern. I bet he has a lot to say, so he had to use the big type...."
I interrupted.
"MMmmhmmm..........that'll be a dollar."
He exhibited more awareness of our interaction than I expected.
"Oh.....you're not interested."
"I've got a lot of work to do."
I feel sort of bad about it. He's got some sort of mental problem and he's desperate for human interaction, which I can sympathize with. But I'm absolutely the wrong guy to mook for your fix, having issues of my own.
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