Scoop

So I’m taking my girls to see a kiddie magician / comedian at the local library this morning. I took Little One to see the same performer three years ago, now she is going to go and sit with her younger sister Patch for a repeat performance. We get there at 10:30, a half-hour before the show is due to start.

My town library, however, has just finished a year-long renovation project which added a fifty-by-forty square foot all-purpose room. All the local celebrities were there – mayors past and present, all the councilmen and women, Friends of the Library bigwigs, and other municipal honchos and pooh-bahs. To be honest, I never seen our small little library so crowded.

Anyway, since we’re early we’re one of the first on line to go into the room to see the magician. And while I’m waiting and trying to keep the girls from touching everything in sight (remember, this part of the library is brand-spanking-new), someone taps my shoulder.

“Excuse me,” a pert young blonde says, “I’m a reporter from the Bergen Record. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Uh, no,” I say. Immediately every nerve in my body goes on alert. My fight-or-flight (mainly flight) response kicks in to overdrive. This is something that has happened to me since I was a young lad, something I never quite conquered or mastered. But at least I don’t flee into the mingling library crowd.

“Are these your two daughters?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say.

She asks for their names and ages, which I supply. She jots down notes on a small pad. “Why are you here today?”

“Uh, to see the magician.”

“Oh.” She jots that down. “Any thoughts about him?”

I tell her basically what I told you in the first paragraph, albeit in a halting, stuttering style.

Then she drops the bombshell. “What do you think of the library renovation?”

“Uh … um … ah … uh …” My eyes scan every nook and cranny of the room we’re in, waiting for something to drop down from the cerebellum to my mouth. No dice, nothing comes, nothing. “Mmmmm,” I add, still searching.

In truth, my internal editor is in overdrive. It’s processing so fast I’m ready to blow a gasket, or a fuse, or melt my inner Intel microchip. Do I tell her that it’s okay, but not that impressive? Do I tell her I just looked at my taxes and saw that the amount assessed to me for the library was $125 this year? Is that too much? Will it be going up because of this renovation? Do I tell her that I generally use other libraries in my county because this one is too small and doesn’t have the eclectic selection I require? Do I tell her I was once on the library’s Board of Trustees a half-dozen years ago and was bored stiff with the job?

No – no – no – no – no – no – and no! She has my name, after all. Yikes!

So it continues: “Ahhhh … well … you know … um …”

Finally, I get something. Something comes down the pike, and I elect to go with it, full throttle, full steam ahead and damn the torpedoes:

“It’s nice. They really did a nice job.”

That’s me. Scoop. Just come to me when you want the scoop, the real deal, the dish, the dirt. Anytime, anywhere.

So that’s a true account of the first time I was ever interviewed for anything, this morning.