And so glad I was, too. I got panhandled by one of the homeless guys. While sitting at the desk, no less!
Also, got into a 10 minute debate about whether listening to an unabridged book on tape counts as "reading" a book or not. I say it does, and that, if anything, it expands the listener's imagination. My sparring partner maintained that the only way to fully expand one's imagination was to read the story from the text. This was from a professional filmmaker.
And, I sheepishly confess that I had a stumper for a while. I ended up taking the caller's name and number, doing some research, and calling back with my findings. The entire time I was searching, I could hear my partner in the back of my mind saying, "What, you don't know this???" It took me far too long to determine if the US budget for fiscal year 2011 has been passed yet. (It hasn't, we're on a continuation through the 3rd, then it's anybody's guess.) The whole experience made me want to go find some high school Civics class and sit in on it. For about 20 years.
Had another one of those heartbreaking-but-this-is-why-I-do-this moments. Helped a young woman find her mother's death notice from the newspaper. She was 6 when her mother died in a car accident, and had never had any of the newspaper clippings. So, we found the death notice, the obituary, and a couple of articles about the hit-and-run drunk driving accident. She had tears in her eyes the whole time, but also a smile. She printed out copies to mail to her sister who just started college.
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