Home repairs and filtering the news

When I say, "Thrills, spills, and excitement," you probably don't visualize a trip to the nearest CVS drugstore to buy a new Brita water filter.  At CVS I could walk blindfolded to the location of the Brita filters, which could be a useful skill except that some yahoo moved the filters.

Wandering up and down the narrow drugstore aisles my brain could not make a link to the thinking of that drugstore yahoo.  The filters were not with the bottled water or with the chilled beverages or the household kitchen/cleaning items or the two for $5 summer seasonal items or mouthwash or adult beverages.  I wasn't walking blindfolded, but I still couldn't see the filters.  True, I am putting some seriously suspect items into my shopping cart. Who is going to eat those two-fer bags of Italian herb and parmesan-flavored Chex Mix?  Step away from the gum and no dental work will get hurt!

Finally asked the check-out clerk if the store had stopped selling Brita filters.  "No," she said, "they are right over there in Home Repairs and Hardware."  Right!  Next to the motor oil and American flags...

Our brains are wired to make associations and leaps, to connect mental images, scent recollections, words and ideas in a bizarre, incredibly efficient retrieval system. That particular drugstore night my brain was too tired to make the Evel Knievel leap across the Grand Canyon to locate the improbably-placed filters.

That's what I like the best and struggle with most in library cataloging.  How can we describe the book so that patrons easily access the record and find what they seek?

In recent years I've been filtering my daily news intake.  I gave up Nightly News except when I watched it with Dad at the nursing home.  I got frustrated with the local newspaper when it raised prices. So if I didn't hear something on NPR, I was blissfully ignorant. When I failed to learn of a recent local tragedy in a timely fashion, friends convinced me it was time to let a newspaper back into my regular routine.  The newspapers are piling up already, and I haven't even gotten to the crossword puzzles.


I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind but now I CVS.


© 2012 Nancy L. Ruder