Satan's Librarian

Maybe it's some secret rite of passage? Maybe Scientology's behind it? I really do wonder why it is not uncostomary in this country for people to approach bookstore employees or librarians with The Unanswerable Question about the Generic Book. You know, the one that goes,

Excuse me, I have a question. There's this book I read about two decades ago, and I really enjoyed it, and I thought maybe it's something for my niece. It's about this girl that moves to a town and then she meets a boy and they do lots of things together. Could you tell me the title, please?

This is pretty much what the person in front of me said the other day to one of the local librarians, when I was in much of a hurry, naturally. But instead of reciting her usual routine about 80,000 books published each year . . . can't know everything, she instead said, and I swear this is true,

I don't know, but why don't you go to that desk over there. There's our head librarian. He knows much more about these things than I do.

It's kind of frightening when you get a glimpse at the hatred simmering in the heads of seemingly peaceful people.