Old Men & Chick Books

When old men come into the library to look at books and NOT ask me out on dates, I love it.  Old men are awesome.  Especially the cranky ones. 

The other day, this old man was in looking at large print books, which is where I was busy organizing and such.  He made sure he wouldn't be in my way, hung his cane on the shelf and made sure that it wasn't in my way either, and then pulled out a typed up packet of papers and started looking at books and comparing them to his papers.  He told me that he has to type up all of the books that he reads so he doesn't read the same ones twice.  Makes sense.  I don't know what it is about me, but I usually mind my own business, but it doesn't stop people from talking freely to me anyway.  I don't mind, really, but I know I don't strike up conversations with people just because they're in a five foot radius of my body for an extended period of time.  Anyway, he says "My son gives me a hard time about the books I read.  He calls them 'chick books.'"  He points to the books he is currently going throuh and choosng from.  "These here, written by Debbie Macomber."
While part of me was thinking "Ha!  Your son is right!  Those ARE chick books, what the hell, dude?" the rest of me was thinking what I actually said out loud to him: 
"Well, if it makes you happy, then who cares, right?" 
And he said "That's exactly what I say to him."

We had a little moment.  It was pretty cute.

So, what I was doing while I was organizing was pulling books off the shelves from other libraries to make more room because they were getting really packed.  We keep other libraries' books within  the county on our shelves, but when it gets too crowded, I see no point in having them there.  So I told him "The top two rows of my cart here are full of books I'm sending back to the owning libraries, if you want to look through them before I take them away."

I went off to do some work somewhere else so I wouldn't get in his way.  But he made a point of telling me that he took two off my cart, and thanks for telling him.

While he was up checking out, I noticed he left his list of books sitting on the shelf.  I picked it up to return to him, and all I can say is WOW.  That was one hefty packet.  Dude reads A LOT.  I wonder if he's into Fern Michaels and Danielle Steel too!  I didn't peek though.