A Library Love Story

Look on Aisle 4 - 306.7

(For Valentine’s Day, I have updated a true story I wrote several years ago. It might be the best thing I have ever written.)

I’ve been a clerk at the local library for nearly 30 years, making me a Library Lifer, I guess. Not counting vacations, sick days, holidays, and hooky days (just kidding there, taxpayers), it works out to somewhere in the vicinity of 7500 days that I’ve gone to the library and done the library thing. And, looking back, I know exactly which one of those days was the best of them all. It was Day 1, July 7, 1993. This is a love story.

In 1993, I was in need of employment and I read in the newspaper (remember newspapers?) that the City was advertising for several job openings. I tested for three positions and the library called first, so I interviewed and I was hired. I was assigned to an Eastside branch, at the time one of the busiest branch libraries in the country.

I showed up at the appointed time (I am deeply into punctuality), filled out some papers, got a quick tour, and did all the usual stuff that has to be done on Day 1 of a new job. At some point I was at the circulation desk, observing, trying to resist the urge to flee, when I looked over to the side to see one of my new co-workers taking some paperback books off of a shelf and putting them on a cart. She was quite an attractive woman, not in a glamorous kind of way, but in more of a natural, real person kind of way. She had very little makeup on, had short-ish blonde hair, and was wearing a gray t-shirt, shorts (not inappropriately short), and those little white Keds. I thought she might be 28-30 years old, and I remember thinking “Ah, she’s probably married and has four kids.”

I was happy to learn she was single. As my time at the library went on, she and I started to talk and get to know each other. By November, four months later, we were kind of dancing around the subject of going out on a date. Wait a minute - it took four months? All I can say to that is . . . well, I don’t know what to say about that, other than that is how long it took. I used to say that I fended her off for as long as I could, but I’m only human, so I gave in. Which would usually inspire an eye roll in my direction. In any event, we made a plan to have our first date on November 27, 1993.

So, I show up at her house at exactly 7 PM (the punctuality thing again), and we go out to dinner. In my pocket, I have my buy one, get one for half off coupon, figuring she should learn right at the beginning that I was not exactly Mr. Big Spender. I think she got the message, but it did not stop her from going out with me again.

It was several months before any of our colleagues knew about our budding relationship. In fact, after we had been going out for a few weeks, one of the other clerks, a young college student, sidled over to me and suggested that she knew the perfect person for me to ask out. I had difficulty stifling a grin when she told me that perfect person’s name. I coolly responded that maybe I’d think about it.

I quite enjoyed that we were seeing each other on the sly. I should stress here that at the library we did not do anything inappropriate. Yes, occasionally there was a stolen glance here, a shy smile there, or the tiniest of nods from across the room. We probably were both too scared of getting into trouble to do anything else.

Eventually, she left for a promotion at another branch. But, she didn’t leave me. In fact, it possibly helped the relationship because seeing each other all day at work, and then seeing each other after work was maybe not the best long term situation for us. Too much of a good thing, you know.

So, what happened to my Library Love from so very long ago? Well, after nearly ten years of being the boyfriend, I finally became the husband (Ten years?). And, I am happy to say, this summer we will celebrate 20 years of wedded bliss. Don’t you just love a happy ending? Sometimes I wonder what would have become of me, of us, if I had taken a position with the City’s accounting department. Little did I know when I walked through the staff entrance at that branch library (a.k.a. the Library of Love) for the first time, I was starting the day that would define the rest of my life.

Thanks for reading The Storm. By Norm.

Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.