What's that you say!?!

Here is a story to keep you busy for five minutes...

The other day I was kickin back at east when a patron returned a book (thats not the good part, keep reading). As he placed the book on the desk he gave me one of those nods with the eye expression warning me that he had something to say. I quietly took the book as he told me that he had gotten the cover wet and wanted to know if there would be a fine.

After further examination I did indeed see a splatter on the book that streaked across the cover in a diaganol fashion. I then rubbed my fingers on it to see if it was still wet and asked if he had just dropped some water on it. Now here is where it gets interesting...

With one of those "I did it, but wont admitt it" looks he said, "it was something watery." Well I was a little concerned...I had just rubbed my fingers on it. So I decided to get it out of him. I could see he was somewhat embarassed and so I sarcastically began listing things it could be, coffee, beer, the blood from a roommate that got on the book as he beat them with it...you know the usual stuff. I even mentioned that our only concern was that if it causes disease we would need to know about it. At that point he got concerned and a little red. Finally after telling him about three book mutilation cases (only one of which were real) to tell him about all of the sick stuff that could be on it he told be he sneezed on it.

Now, it would have to be one really big, sick, wet one to do what it did to the book so I still have my doubts because he was lookin pretty healthy to me at the time. But who am I to say.