A young man who has some developmental challenges came up to the desk and asked me if he could tell me a joke. At first I was a bit apprehensive, but he was so excited that I couldn't tell him no. He told me the joke, and a follow-up joke, and he was so happy to share his creativity that he bounded over to the computers and smiled the rest of the time he was in the library.
Simone, branch library manager
Before I begin, I know what your question is. Well, I know what MY question was. "WHAT WAS THE JOKE???!!?" was the subject line to the email I sent to Simone after she sent me this story.
So, to get it out of the way:
What do you call a woman who has one leg? Eileen.
Where does she work? Ihop.
Simone added, He was pretty satisfied with himself lol
Have you ever told a joke, expecting laughter, and heard crickets instead? Of course you have. That's a pretty universal human experience. And doesn't it stink when it happens? What about when you tell a joke, or say something slightly funny, and you get a positive response -- a smile, laughter (a snort is best), a nodding head? Pretty much the opposite, of course.
That's the part of Simone's story that she leaves out but is pretty easy to fill in: she laughed. At both jokes. Of course she did. Otherwise the young man would not have been so happy that he "bounded" on his way to the library's computers and smiled the entire time he was there.
It's all part and parcel of a welcoming environment in a library. Robert Frost wrote that "home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."
The library is not quite the place where, when you go there and tell a joke, they have to laugh -- but isn't it nice to know that chances are, they will?
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