You have to laugh (or you'd surely scream)

Today I got back from my time off. Cloud nine...cloud friggin' nine people!

The big pile of work on my desk did nothing to kill the moment.

Even my fine young friends, the teenage patrons, were about as well-behaved as they are able to be while still remaining "cool" or whatever they call it these days.

Only one (actually two--more in my next post) drop of rain plopped heavily onto my parade today, in the form of, surprise surprise, a patron on the telephone.

Now, I must mention, I Hate the telephone. You lack a certain context--it's hard to draw out of people what they really mean, and often, all too often, it sounds as though the person is speaking to you from inside a toilet. (Damn speakerphone!) If that's not enough, ususally the person has someone yelling at them from in the room, or is talking to someone on another phone simultaneously, or has the televangelist turned up so loud I begin to feel a bit sanctified myself. Telephone reference invites the unthought-out question, the distracted question, and the question suddenly interrupted when the person (on their cell phone) steps into an elevator or drives into a tunnel, only to be picked up hours later when the reference source has been put away and all the people who worked on the question have gone home for the night.

But, on to my telephone patron of the day...
Yes! I need to know about these five philosophers, Homer, Socrates, Aristotle...well I need to know...well one of them had a wife...I mean a wife who did something...important, ya'know?
Well, that's not ringing any bells for me. Could you tell me any more?
I don't know. Did one of them have a wife? I think it was Homer or Socrates or one of those others...had a wife...I don't have much information. It's for school. I don't really know. Can't you just read off the famous philosophers--there can't be that many, maybe I'll recognize it...
Ma'am there are hundreds of famous philosophers. Are you just looking for greek philosophers, or all kinds? Can you tell me something more about your question?
I don't know. It was a philosopher and greek mythology and his wife and it had something to do with a snake.
Well, philosophy and mythology are two different things. Did you mean mythology?
No. Philosophy. Philosophers. Why don't you just read me a list of the most famous, doesn't have to be greek, any of them...
OK.....(scrambling for reference source that might list philosophers in some sort of "top ten" list) There's Sartre...
How do you spell that..[I spell Sartre]..can you say it again?
And there's Plato...
What did he do?
...[brief description of Plato's thought]...
Could you slow down...I'm driving and I'm having trouble writing this all down...

This continued in the same vein through several other philosophers, but that's the punchline folks. Holy fuzzy easter bunnies! And be careful while you're driving in my town!