From the Library: Self-help is just around the corner

It all started with the car window that wouldn’t close. My kids make fun of my minivan, which I’ve defended to the last dent. Until, that is, I tried to raise the passenger window on a recent Monday morning and it wouldn’t budge.

I enjoy a gale-force breeze as much as the next passenger, but halfway home from a weekend on the Cape I’m burrowing into my hoodie ready to join my canine companion in the back seat when I glance over my shoulder and, uh oh, no Duffy. As I said, I blame it on the window. Since I’m due at the Morrill Memorial Library reference desk at 9 a.m. there’s no time to turn around.

But being the resourceful librarian I am, I immediately call my neighbor Story Fish—his real name, and yes, he’s a fisherman—who rescued the pup waiting patiently at my back door. Story was chuckling but I was horrified. I mean, I’ve left my kids behind before, sure, but never my dog.

My co-worker Margot let me leave early that afternoon and agreed not to notify the ASPCA. The good news was I now had almost three hours to finish listening to Kim Edwards’ “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” on CD before book group that night. The bad news was book group was at my house. During my lunch break I’d grabbed a ready-made cheese platter, a cake, and a selection of fine wines from the two-for-$10 bin before rushing home to kick the clutter under the couch. Rose promised to play hostess if I wasn’t home by 7:30.

Lonely but alive, Duffy accepted my apology during our emotional reunion. I left a message thanking Story for getting me out of the doghouse and was nearing the Sagamore Bridge, confident I’d covered all bases, when my cell phone rang.

A female voice said, “I would definitely pick up Duffy if I saw him running down Manor Road.” Huh? The only person I knew on Manor Road was my friend from kindergarten who now lives outside Baltimore.

 “Susan? Is that you? How did you know what happened to Duffy?” Apparently when I scrolled down to the S’s on my phone I accidentally pressed “Susan” instead of “Story.” The audio book instantly took a back seat. I spent the next half hour happily gabbing with the girl who gave me a math book for my first birthday. When you cry in school over your numbers as a kid, I guess you have to expect stuff like that. Meanwhile, I’d missed two calls from the fisherman to make sure I’d retrieved my terrier.

Back at the ranch, the wine and conversation flowed freely during book group while Duffy licked my leg non-stop. Turns out I was the only one who really liked the book, at least the parts I’d listened to.

My point…and I do have one, as Ellen DeGeneres says in her hilarious book by that title (call# 818 DeG)--is that if, like me, you have some issues that could use addressing, your local library is here to help.

Not only do we have an excellent self-help section and several insightful books on memory loss, i.e. “Fifty Signs of Mental Illness” (616.89 Hicks) and “Where Did I Leave My Glasses?” (substitute Dog--155.67 Lear), but our canine collection is quite comprehensive as well. May I recommend “Dogs Never Lie about Love: Reflections on the Emotional World of Dogs” (636.7 Mas) or perhaps “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting and Owning a Dog” (636.7 Boneham).

Speaking of dogs, the “N.A.D.A Official Used Car Guide” (629.22 NADA), shelved behind the Reference desk, can tell you what to expect on a trade-in for, say, a well-ventilated 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan. For the mathematically challenged among us, I found “Kiss My Math: Showing Pre-Algebra Who’s Boss” (512 McKellar) and “Math Doesn’t Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail” (510 McKellar) particularly intriquing.

And finally, for you book club hosts who are actually organized enough to make something from scratch, “Read It and Eat: a Month-by-Month Guide to Scintillating Book Club Selections and Mouthwatering Menus” (028 Gardner) is a must-read. Your book group will love you for it.

April Cushing is an adult services librarian at the Morrill Memorial Library in Norwood.