Leak

I was at the register at the Astor Place Barnes & Noble yesterday when I felt a drop of water on my head.

I slapped at it. It's in your mind, I thought. Then it happened again.

I looked up. There was a leak coming out of the light fixture above the register. I looked at the woman behind the counter.

"There's a leak," I said. I pointed it out.

She handed me the credit card receipt to sign and said nothing.

I signed and then felt another drop. I handed her the slip.

"There's a leak," I said. This time my tone had a question mark at the end of it.

She shrugged.

"I know," she said.

I took my books and left. Back out on the street I thought about the exchange. How odd. She knew and apparently did not plan on doing anything about it.

But as the afternoon wore on, I began to see the logic in her approach. It's not like there were any books directly under the leak. No merchandise was being harmed.

Really only jaded urban customers were getting small pricks, little wakeup calls to the unpredictability of life. A life that, once you think about it, is full of leaks. We're constantly trying to repare them. And then, just as we do, a new one always seems to spring up.

Perhaps every once in a while it isn't such a bad idea to let one go.