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Library Cookies
Catching myself with my hand in the cookie jar the other day I found myself smiling at a sweet memory.
I’ve written about my years as a high school librarian, my colleague Ann, and our boss Dorothy. (See Dolly and Me at the DMV).
In the back of that school library was our large, shared office with three desks and a large cabinet that held book order files, supplies, and other library miscellany.
Now I confess although the students were strictly forbidden to eat or drink in the library, we had a secret stash of snacks we kept in that office cabinet for ourselves and we replenished it regularly. In fact rather then keep them on the shelf with our coffeepot, we deliberately kept those snacks out of sight so we wouldn’t be tempted to indulge too often.
I remember one day we had closed the library so the three of us could work together on the annual book order. We each were at our desk when Dolly got up, walked across the room to the cabinet, and then back to her desk munching on a cookie. A few minutes passed and Ann got up, made the trip to the cabinet, and back to her desk. And then me, and then Dolly again, and Ann again, and then me again, and us all in turn as if it had been choreographed, until the book order was done – or perhaps until all the cookies were gone!
Postscript
For more about my years working in libraries see My Snowy Year in Buffalo, Magazines for the Principal – for David ,The Great Jane Addams Library Flood, The Diary of a Young Girl. A Favor for the Coach, The Parking Lot Seniority List, Shelf List and Educator of the Year – Remembering Milton.
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
As I read this, I am munching on MnMs! Sometimes snacking is inevitable and delicious. Those cookies sound wonderful (but not good for the figure).
Yes Betsy, not good for the figure but addictive nevertheless!
Your story reminded me of a job I had where the administrator kept a stash of snacks in a file cabinet to elevate worker morale—including “healthy” ones like trail mix from CostCo—and I finally had to stop the daily pilgrimage to the cabinet so I could fit into my clothes!
Ah Khati, I see we were not the only pilgrims at the workplace!
Fun story, Dana. Might have made more sense to bring the cookies out of the file cabinet, since you 3 were the only ones there. But then again, it was good exercise walking from your desks to the cabinet and back.
Thanx Suzy.
We rationalized if they were out of sight we’d eat less of them, but the flesh is weak!