Smoking Section

R-E-A-D spells read.

At the place of my employment, i meet people whose life ambition is to own every back issue of National Geographic, ever. I talk to old men who can afford to send their daughters to private school, but can't afford to buy their own newspapers and bitch and complain when other people are reading the sports section. I have to calm young women who are upset that they have to give up the computer they have been on for over 2 hours so that someone who is waiting can check their e-mail. I have heard stories of how books and videos have defied space and time and just simply disappeared or showed up a couple of days late unbeknowst to the patron. When asked who would have a movie if we didn't, I get dagger looks when i reply "a video store. We try to spend as much of our budget as we can on books. We are a library." At the end of the day I turn off the lights on the books that need dusting, the computers that need maintanance, and the videos that need replacing and prepare for the next week when, two days before school starts, I will be flooded with calls asking if we have the movies to the books the students were supposed to read over the summer. What is so horrible about reading?