10/100: The Elusive Perfect Anecdote

This article looks at Day 10 in a series of 100 visits detailing what happens at my local library

Since I launched this series ten days ago, I’ve walked to the library every morning with a sense of dread that nothing worth writing about will happen this time. I routinely pray for the perfect anecdote — sensational but nuanced, light but profound, heart-warming without the cliché. Every day. For 100 days. Is that so much to ask?

Mustachio is on the phone when I enter the History and Religion room. He’s talking to someone named Howard, and there’s a situation that needs to be handled, but he assures Howard he’s on it before hanging up and exiting the room. As such, he doesn’t say hello to me today. It’s hard to say whether he would have had my timing been different. I like to think yes.

I usually sit at the corner table of the room, as it gives me a relatively panoramic view of the space. From here I can watch as library-goers trickle in. As of writing this, it’s early and there is only me, Mustachio, and two other patrons, both of whom are hunched over tables adjacent to mine, and both of whom are asleep.

A public safety officer is doing his rounds, and knocks gently on the table of the first sleeper. A woman in a black puffer coat jerks awake.

You okay? Just checking.

She sluggishly nods and he snakes through the tables towards the other figure, this one buried under a large red blanket of a coat. Again, he knocks on the table. Red Coat doesn’t move. He tries again with a little more force, and again is met with silence. This goes on for perhaps a minute, the concern in his voice rising with the passing of each soundless second. Mustachio looks on from his desk with an expression of apprehension. I too am uneasy at Red Coat’s inertia — this is not the entertaining occurrence I had hoped for.

The safety officer uses his walkie-talkie to notify his colleague, who shows up shortly. Together they approach Red Coat, rapping loudly now on the table, eventually bringing out the big guns — which when you’re a BPL public safety officer means touching Red Coat ever so tentatively to shake him awake.

Red Coat stirs, removes his hood. He’s wearing headphones, he’s tired, he confirms he’s alive, he goes back to sleep. The officers are satisfied. I am satisfied too, not only because Red Coat is okay, but because I now have an adequate but untragic anecdote to tell on Day 10.

When I took on the task of observational writing for 100 days, I put myself in a position of dependence upon the people around me. I suppose we all do this every day — rely on other people to cooperate with us, to do whatever it is we believe we need them to do so that we can carry on in whatever it is we believe we need to do. When things don’t go our way, we enter states of agitas, as if what we want should have such a significant bearing on the actions of those around us. It’s crazy-making; the “it” that people mean when they say let it go.

But the process — which entails a combination of knowing there are factors beyond our control, and not knowing how said factors will affect our own outcomes — is an incredibly difficult thing to trust. The best we can do is continue to show up and play our respective roles in it.

Mustachio and I watched the Red Coat saga unfold from our seats, entrusting the task to Public Safety. I like to think that, had the situation escalated, I would have stepped up to help. As it was, it didn’t, and my role remains the one of the observer: to write, maybe to find a little meaning in the ordinary occurrences of the everyday. Mustachio’s role is to help people find books, and now that we’ve established that Red Coat is fine, — just tired — a woman is looking to borrow The Bible.

The Bible is reference only, and I’ll need an ID card to hold on to while you’re reading it.

The woman looks surprised.

Why do you need my ID card to let me read the book?

It’s library policy, we’ve had several occasions of theft. In fact, The Bible is the most stolen book in libraries across America.

Not very Christian. Maybe blind faith isn’t always the way to go.

Thanks for reading! If you’re enjoying this series, you might also like:

100 Days at the Library: The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics
100 Days at the Library: Snow and Micro Memoirs