I’d been listening to a series of college lectures on British Lit. The cyber prof got worked up to a froth over Jane Austen. So, I placed a few of her works on hold at the library.  The first to pop up was Mansfield Park. I tried. Lord! How I tried to listen to this novel. But, as you know, I am a weak and imperfect man, prone to failure. I couldn’t finish.

Today my hold on a series of lectures on American history came up at the library and there on the shelf, alongside it, was Emma by Jane Austen. I picked up my two holds and went to check-out. The nosy twenty-yr-old library assistant naturally moseyed over to watch over my shoulder as I, in my tweed jacket, gift of the homeless shelter, operated the county’s expensive hi-tech check-out machine.

“Oh, American history, that’s a worthy read,” she said, rubbing my nose in the fact that I refuse to use nouns as verbs. Then she picked up Emma, which I had set aside. “What about this one?” she probed.