now I eat humble pie...

Okay, I know that my previous posts have come off sounding, well, snobby and patronizing. I figured that I should turn it all around today and let you all in on my own literary stupidness. Maybe stupid is a harsh word. Maybe I'll use uninformedness instead. I know, I know, it's not a word. Settle down, take it easy, you should try making up words yourselves. It's fun.

GET ON WITH IT

I was in the back room of the store. I was working on packing up returns to send back to publishers (the deadlines are all this week, so my associate and I were working quite diligently). My associate, who is much more informed in the ways of classic literature, philosophy and the likes, starts telling my manager a stupid customer story (these are as popular among us staff as they are for all you who read this). Apparently, a woman came in asking, nay demanding that one of my co-workers find a particular book for her. Now, this is where the biggest joke-I-don't-get came into play, and please, if you have any idea what makes this funny, by all means let me in on it.

So the woman asked for "Elliott" by Daniella Derunda (disregard the spelling, as I didn't read it, I simply heard it). And when my associate told my manager, they both started laughing hysterically. And for the rest of the day, whenever my co-worker and my associate were in the same room, they re-enacted the moment and laughed hysterically.

Now, myself, not wanting to appear weak or naive or, God forbid, uninformed, well I just laughed right along with them. With all of them. Every single person working that day. All laughing and making fun of this woman. And I had absolutely no idea what was so funny. And then, well, that in itself became funny.

Later on it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't the only one pretending to get it. Wouldn't it be even funnier if the only people that got it were the two with whom the story originated? And everyone else was just laughing to deflect attention from their confusion.

Or maybe that was just me.