“Do you have any books on UNIX?” I asked the reference librarian at one of our local libraries some years ago (before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis). The man seemed taken aback and a bit nervous. He looked at me strangely like I was some weirdo that had just wandered off the street and was going to attack him.

Initially I supposed his reaction was a result from the sleazy neighborhood where the library’s temporary facilities were located while the main library branch was being rebuilt but I was wrong. Eventually I figured out his reaction. It was a communication problem! I don’t remember the exact conversation but it went something like this:

“Do you have any books on UNIX?”

“No, we don’t carry any books on that subject.”

“You don’t. I’m surprised. Are you sure you don’t have any books on UNIX? It’s a standard and I’d like to get a reference book if possible.”

Making a show of looking through the catalog while regarding me as some strange creature sent to plague him the librarian eventually slowly replied, “I can’t find any books in the library on eunuchs.”

Now I was surprised and commented,”That’s strange, it’s a pretty common subject. I thought every library carried books on UNIX.”

Something was definitely wrong here but at the time I couldn’t quite figure out the problem so I asked, “Well, do you have any books on computer operating systems?”

The man seemed somewhat relieved to change the subject and quickly directed me to a library section where I found half a dozen books on UNIX. I spent some time inspecting them and selected a couple to checkout. As I was going through checkout the staff lady checking out the books started laughing. Seems that the reference librarian had asked the staff to watch the eunuch weirdo. She kindly explained the misunderstanding to me. I don’t know if she ever explained it to reference librarian because every time he was in the library during my future visits he seem to always find a way to avoid me.

Apparently I’m not the first to encounter this misunderstanding. While searching for an image to support this account I found the following cartoon on the same subject:

Tags: Humor

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 8th, 2009 at 8:42 am and is filed under Humor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

this article with others.