According to Library Personnel

In a Public Library, in a staff room, on the grey ledge of a cubicle, there is a Darth Vader Potato Head bearing a red light saber. It was not always there and I do not recall when it arrived, and it matters not, for it is now part of my reality, as an employee, of the Public Library.



On one particular day, I arrived through the back door as usual, before opening, and put my keys and my bag in a locker. I went straight out of the staff room and onto the floor. I don't really notice the books anymore, now that I work in such a place. When you go to a Library or a book store, I believe that one must be book-stricken. However being surrounded by books for so long, makes them like a wave upon another wave. When you live near the ocean you don't always hear it,



but an in-lander will arrive near the shore

and smell the salt in the air and hear

and feel the vibration of the waves,

the masses of them crashing in,

together, connected, like one body,

like an ancient beast.



The books in the library are, and are not like an ancient beast, because many of them are new or merely reprints of old ideas, and many books even besides those are a call or response to other books and so - they are all connected. Like people. A human can not exist without parents to precede it.



So there I was on the floor, with the ancient beast of books, turning on all of the computers. I pushed each button, each one of them click-clicked and following there is always an ascending hum and frequency that adds to the murmurings of the ancient beast of books. The breath of technology. This task is all very routine and things are made up of so much routine at the library that even the smallest irregularities can cause temporary unrest among the staff.



There are about 25 computers in all and two inparticular that require a key. A cabinet must be unlocked and opened in order to turn the computer on and to shut it down. Then once those special computers are on, there is a password required to enter the necessary program. I unlocked the cabinets and pushed the buttons as usual, but then something unexpected happened. A small elf emerged from around the shelf to my left with a tray of chocolates. Just kidding.



I typed in the necessary password which was 'password' for the necessary program, but to my surprise a very small window popped up and said, "Your password is expired. Please select a new one. A minimum of six characters." or something very similar to that.



I went straight to my supervisor in the staff room. "Jimbo." I said rounding the corner of his grey cubicle.



"Yes."



"The OPAC computers need a new password. The old one is expired."



"What would you like it to be? Go ahead and pick something."



My eyebrows tensed, my eyes widened. "So many choices."



Denise said, "How about 'password111'?"



Jim and I both said no. "Something clever..." Jim added.



Denise then said "Well at the library I used to work at we always picked movie titles. It was great." She said reminiscently. "and we always remembered the password because...it was a movie."



Jim shook his head no and said again, "No something clever..."



I agreed with Jim and said, "Yeah, and some of those movie titles are hard to spell. How could I remember to spell 'Moulan Rouge' everyDAY?"



Denise shrugged. Jim was still sitting in his cubicle, and pensively at that, when he said, "I know..." and as he paused I noticed for the umpteenth time the Darth Vader potato head grinning to all. If it had an automated voice, I think it would say. "Common let's play....I mean fight." I don't know who it belongs too but I suspect it's Jim's, however I have never verified this.



"phrases." said Jim.



"Like what?" Denise and I both wanted to know.



"phrases, like, 'we are so cool' "



Denise approved. So did I. Not because I thought it was brilliant, but because I knew I could spell it.



The password is now 'we are so cool' and of course you realize that it isn't really the password because I can't give out information like that, but understand, that the password dilemma was deliberated over. It did disrupt our minds for those brief moments, and we dramatically picked a password that is far from dull (according to library personnel.)