Monday, March 18, 2013

Suburbs of Our Discontent

Regret

This is not a believable story.

On Friday I was browsing in a bookstore here in Boston. Suddenly, a strange* man ran in and yelled "DO YOU HAVE ANY BOOKS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE???!!!!"He actually ran in, and he actually yelled.

My first instinct was to scramble to my son, the innocent boy sitting criss-cross-applesauce with a pile of Big Nate books on his lap. Got to protect him from the Shakespeare Weirdo!

Of course, if you asked my son to identify the Shakespeare Weirdo in the store, he'd point right at me, not the old dude in the cowboy hat.

But I just stood there until the SW appeared again a few minutes later. He was departing from the store with nothing in his hands. Not because the store lacked BOOKS BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. What did this guy want exactly? And why was this all so urgent? Why didn't I talk to him? Wish I had.

*wild hair, cowboy hat, crazy eyes, sixty-ish

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