Oh, I feel your pain, I tell her, because my lab work has me washing my hands dozens of times a day, leaving my skin dried out and chapped, especially in the winter. But I discovered the perfect hand cream last year and haven’t had dry hands since! So I pull my little silver tube of hand cream out of my purse and show it to her. By now we’ve drawn a small crowd. I have three librarians leaning across the counter, and a woman behind me in line sneaking up to listen in. Ooooh, say the librarians, in harmony. My hands are inspected by all these sets of eyes and judged to be sufficiently smooth-looking as to be an endorsement for said cream. One asks to smell the cream. I hand the tube over to the woman who appears to be their leader and much sniffing ensues. The name of the cream gets scribbled in Sharpie on a Post-It pad and stuck to the computer monitor for reference. I tell them where to get it at the Columbia Mall, and I’m pretty sure that as I exit the library, a librarian shopping expedition is being planned for after work.
That totally made my day.