triggering lovely memories

It's so funny how seeing something, hearing a song, or smelling something so familiar can trigger things you haven't thought about in so long. "That human brain is a crazy complex thing!" (That's a direct quote from one of my students as we were reviewing the many parts/functions of the brain for their test on the nervous system. Cute.)

Well, as I was shopping this week for a friend's birthday gift, I stumbled on these earrings by the company 'Viv & Ingrid'. I couldn't help but smile as a flood of memories of college and the smell of old books came rushing in.



Let me explain...

I spent the first few years of college working in the University Library. I worked at the circulation desk, worked in the "Reserves" department where I had to keep Professor's books organized and labeled so students could come and check them out for short periods of time, I had to re-shelf books (the worst job ever!), and TOO OFTEN I had to type out letters, stuff envelopes, and FILE all the letters for those students who had serious fines for late and/or lost books.

Wow. I haven't thought about this job in so long! The frustration and boredom is all coming back. My sophomore year I convinced my friend Michelle to work at the library, as she was looking for a job. We would get so incredibly bored that we would spend our shifts back in the fines/fees department using the typewriter to write each other letters back and forth. For whatever reason all the student employees had mailboxes, and the only mail we ever got were the letters we wrote back and forth to each other. Had any of our supervisors found out, they probably would have cared less. At any rate, we decided to use code names so the letters could never be traced back to us. Michelle became Vivian, and I became Ingrid. We created these characters who blossomed into a couple of ladies from the 40's who worked at the library and would gossip about their ridiculous bosses, and only cared about martinis, smoking cigarettes, red lipstick, men, and simply being fabulous. Not wanting our friend Dianne to be out of the picture, we asked her to come up with a character - she became Poppy, a socialite who didn't need to work and would visit the ladies at their job. Viv & Ingrid would often mention Poppy in the letters. For our birthdays that year, I got Michelle a cigarette case with 'Vivian' engraved on it, and she got me martini glasses and cocktail napkins. It's blowing my mind a bit to think that was almost 10 years ago!

Needless to say, seeing those earrings by that company made me laugh, and ALMOST miss those hours in the library just a bit.