Interloper

I have lately gotten into the habit of reading newspapers and periodicals at the library when I go to checkout and return DVDs. This being the case, I often spend as much time there in a day as I did in my early days here. At that time, I had no computer at home, let alone internet access, and so had no choice but to use the library's computers. The maximum time one had was two hours a day, and in that time I got to know the characters at the library near my home.

There were vagrants and near-vagrants, kids and adults, and food vendors trying to make a buck before being ejected. None of them could I really relate to. Now I am getting to know the characters at this branch. As yet there are only one or two I know by sight, word or deed. There was the other day a rather interesting women who was rather effective in thwarting my efforts to read the latest issue of the New Yorker. Of all the intolerable nuisances that lurk there, she may be the hardest to dislike.

I never do have the heart to rid myself of any of them, but she was really something. She's middle aged, with brown hair and fair skin. She stalks about talking to no one if necessary, but to any target of opportunity if possible. She must be unbalanced, because if she's not it's a fantastic acting job. I don't think it occurs to her that her motormouthed, one-way conversations might be unwelcome. I'd just as soon not have had the pleasure, but then it was the only real conversation I wound up having most of the day.

There was something to like in her for all the flattery she heaped on me. She liked my shirt, my blue eyes, my naturally curly hair and my affirmative answer to her guess that I was a 'recovering Catholic'. She figured wrong that I was of Irish descent, but was just as happy to hear that I was partly of French extraction. She kept taking off and coming back. I didn't have to guess if she was still around even when she wasn't near me, because her voice carried to nearly all points within the library. Finally she was gone, and I couldn't be entirely against her as I wanted to be. She's some kind of a lady, and I'm sure I'm not rid of her.