I went to the library by myself today with my to-read list. After a gleeful romp about the premises, I ended up with five books (“The Fortress of Solitude,” “Charming Billy,” “While I Was Gone,” “Peace Like a River” and “The South Beach Diet Cookbook,” which doesn’t really count but it is a book and I did check it out.). And after that bit of adventure, a guy gathering signatures (he had been gathering signatures, anyway) was charging toward the door when I was on my way out. He was yelling something about being “unprofessional,” and then a whole gang of signature-gatherers charged up the stairs and there was indiscriminate taunting along the lines of “What’re you gonna do about it?” and “You’re not gonna do anything” and “#$%@%!!” And then there was meowing! Very professional indeed!

When I got to the car, I found that the angry mob of signature-gatherers had parking their big ol’ van right behind me. So I was stuck in the library parking lot until they got tired of arguing and left. And you thought I avoided the petition folk before! OK, so you’d never thought about my interaction with the petition people before. But trust me, I avoided them! Now that I know they’re meowing crazies, I’ll avoid them even more.*

*All in good fun, signature-gathers. You know I love you, baby.**

**Also in good fun, Ike Turner. I love you, too, baby.