Mad About Madeline

(A father and daughter walk into the library with an armful of books.)

Father: “Hi. You accept donations, right?”

Me: “Sure, as long as they are in good condition and are not textbooks or phone books.”

(I go through the small stack, sorting them into children’s, adult fiction, etc, as well as pulling out a tablet case.)

Father: “You can just sell that or something.”

Me: “Sure.”

Me: *jokingly to the daughter as I pull a Madeline picture book out of the stack* “Are you sure you wanted to give this to us?”

Daughter: *alarmed* “NO! Nobody said we were going to give this to you!”

(She grabbed it from my hand and bolted for the doors. I apologized to her father, waited until they were out of sight, and only then began laughing.)