A New Conspiracy

I will excuse my long absence only by saying that nothing particularly exciting or misadventurous (in even a small way) has happened to me lately. Well, except for my post-modern Buddhist monk teacher, and the start of The Guild. . .but those are stories for another time.

Every time I walk out of the main library entry here on campus, there is this sign that really bothers me. It says

WHEN THE ALARM SOUNDS, PLEASE STEP BACK

It's right past those scanner-things, I suppose to stop people who already had no qualms about stealing books from running and escaping with them. But something was nagging at my mind and bothering me, and it finally came to me: the problem with the sign is that it said when the alarm sounds, not if the alarm sounds. Really, I thought, affronted. I have no intention of setting off the alarm, so please keep you accusations to yourself (when I say that, I feel like a little old lady poking some silly youngster with her parasol).

Still, it raises important life-questions. Does the library really expect 9 out of 10 students to set off the alarm? Is it to discourage professors from stealing books? Are their really no English majors working at the library? Or is it some darker plot, to frame innocent library-goers and hit them with a crime they never committed?

Hmmm. Or maybe they just believe in original sin.