Doin’ “it” by the book

Of course we librarians are fighting our stereotype down here in New Orleans.  They’re selling a T-Shirt on Bourbon Street that says “Librarians do it by the book,” and the nature of the street suggests what “it” is.  At a bar last night, I overheard a young man ask a young woman if she was a librarian.  He asked it in such a way as to suggest that being mistaken for a librarian was not another way of suggesting that the young lady was “hot.”  I leaned in and told him that I was a librarian.  I thought he might want to know.  He drank to that.  And, to his surprise, so did I.