Saturday, February 23, 2008

The randomness of memories

I woke up this morning thinking about my dad and me getting in trouble at the library.

We first moved to the U.S. when I was ten. Immediately, our dad introduced us to the joys of the Fairfax county library. I'd always read voraciously. And there were endless books! Endless! It was one of my favorite places.

But we got in trouble regularly.

The problem was not with keeping books out too long and incurring fines, or trying to check out too many at once.

The problem was not even that we'd talk out loud - because for the most part we were quiet and respectful library patrons.

No.

The trouble was the photocopy machine.

Because, you see, they had photocopy machines for public use. You know - you're doing some research, you want to copy an article. So you'd put coins in and copy your book or periodical.

Or anyway, that's what most people do.

We, on the other hand - we being my dad and me - we were far more interested in the joys of copying things like, oh, our hands. Or our faces. We'd have bad face contests regularly. And now we could record them! Squished on glass! And immortalized in black and white!

We usually each got one good hand and face copy before being chastised and asked to stop.

Improper use of the copy machine. Grease on the glass. Verboten.

So we'd limit the joy to once every few visits.

9 comments:

  1. Haha! That's awesome. I heart your dad. :o) ~Laura

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  2. We just spent the afternoon at the library using their free wifi and it didn't occur to me to photocopy any body parts!

    But, hey, I have a photocopier here...

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  3. It will probably not surprise you at all to learn that my dad liked to get us into "trouble" at restaurants by instigating straw wrapper wars, wherein he taught my sister and I how to blow them at him (and each other).

    I think dads like that usually wind up raising pretty awesome people.

    I'm just sayin'.

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  4. Your Dad sounds like so much fun! But the real question is this.... has the fascination with photocopying body parts continued? Have you photocopied your bootie on the work copy machine? ;)

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  5. A.S. - We got up to some huge ridiculousness in public when I was a kid!

    DCup - You are probably raising your kids to be better behaved humans than we were sometimes.

    Dagny - Hahaha! Wrapper wars! And yes, I'm going to agree with you. :)

    Almost - You know, that's never occurred to me! Shocking, actually.

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  6. Have you seen this video?

    http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=11098

    I remember taking pictures to be photocopied at the library, just for the sake of copying them.

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  7. LG:

    That's why they made Dads.

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  8. Love it - what squares at the library! Where did you move to the States from?

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  9. Dr. Psycho - Oh, no, hadn't seen it! Way before scanners and digital cameras, photocopies were very compelling!

    Kelso's Nuts - Ha! Yah, I think that's true.

    Canaan - We'd just moved from Egypt. And the librarians did have a point - we got mashed face and hand grease all over the glass.

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