January 17: not what I ordered...

My knowledge of Buddy Holly is incredibly disproportionate to my appreciation his music. That is to say that I know a whole lot more than necessary. Anthony Duran, a Buddy Holly obsessed fourth grader (Don’t worry if you didn’t have one of these – I think they are rare) I went to school with is to blame for this. Every day at recess he’d stand behind the monkey bars and put on Buddy Holly concerts. He and his “band” usually didn’t have much of an audience, but let me tell you I’m sure we’ve all still got the songs DOWN as they sang for all to hear! Years went by and I lost track of Anthony Duran, but I was captivated one lazy summer day by the only somewhat interesting programming on one of our family’s five television stations – a documentary on the life story of Buddy Holly. Once really should have been enough, but yes, I watched it three times. It was a real low point in my life. I can tell you, in case you didn’t know, that Mr. Holly died unexpectedly (as sometimes happens) in a plane crash with Tony Vallens and the Big Bopper. Incidentally, this was the tragic incident that inspired Don McLean’s legendary song “Miss American Pie” about the day the music died. That song never seems to though. See, I could totally school you in Trivial Pursuit on this subject.

But all that is just to prep you with background story so you will be fully contextualized for my adventure TODAY.

I got a message from the InterLibrary Loan lady. This mechanical recorded matronly voice is confusing as she starts by announcing her phone number, saying goodbye, and then alerting me that the library materials I requested are now on hold and ready for pick-up. She always does it in that order. But, I’ve just learned that she likes to do things a little out of order and I deal with it.

So, I was pretty excited because I was waiting for Season I of my new favorite T.V. show on DVD to come in so I could help my roommate to also come to love it. I assumed that is what the woman was calling about. Wooster’s library allows you to find your items on hold yourself and then check them out. So, I went to the shelf to retrieve the boxed-set only to find a thin brown envelope with my name on it. I was extremely disappointed. What could this be?

Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits, of course.

My first thought was, “Someone must have replaced Season I with Buddy Holly’s Greatest Hits so they could check it out! How dare they!” Then I thought, “Oh, those silly librarians, I better just go let them know that they must have mixed me up with someone else and could they please find Season I for me….but first I better take a picture for Picture of the Day’s sake.” So, I did and then got in the line to alert them.

I was in line behind this kid who was trying to get his fines below $10 so he could check stuff out, which I can’t rally relate to (juuuuuust kidding). But since I had some time, honestly the next question that went through my head was, “If I was playing Trivial Pursuit right now, would I be able to come up with all of Buddy’s hit songs?” I had Peggy Sue, Oh, Boy! And That’ll Be the Day…but golly I was out after that. So me being ever the over-achiever I decided to study up.

I opened the CD case.

Gasp! I’d been set-up. There was a message inside. It was intended for me. Oh, boy…who was the mastermind of this? Good thing I figured this out before I started chatting with the librarian at the desk.

SOMEONE must have hacked into the system and intercepted Inter-Library Loan materials and reserved B.H’s Greatest Hits under my name so that the mechanical I.L.L lady would leave a message on my phone. Very sneaky. Very, very sneaky indeed. Who would engineer such a thing? It’s a mystery waiting to be solved.... in the mean time I am going to try to get Peggy Sue out of my head!