Most parents know that having children puts you in deeply embarrassing positions quite often. Generally, I’ve gotten used to this phenomenon, and have learned to suck it up and deal … until I hit a deal-breaker today.
My son has recently become enamored of a book entitled “The Day My Butt Went Psycho,” and he wanted to read the sequel, “Zombie Butts from Uranus.” At our local library today, the catalog showed that they had the book, but it wasn’t on the shelf. I went to check out the rest of the books, figuring that I could ask the circulation desk librarian how to find the book.
There were three people working the circulation desk: the cool, vaguely hippie-ish guy, a woman that I didn’t know, and the extremely upright pillar of the community, director of the historical society, and stalwart of the local Mennonite church. Guess which one was free when it was my turn?
I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t do it. I imagine he probably wouldn’t have cared (he’s checked out plenty of interesting stuff for me in the past), but I could not make myself say the words “Zombie Butts from Uranus” to that wonderful man. We skittered home instead, and put the book on hold through the online catalog. Hopefully someone else will be working the circulation desk when it’s time to check it out.
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