Wednesday, February 06, 2008

My Hero: Bartleby the Scrivener?

Why Bartleby? I love his one and only response to all requests: "I prefer not to." Those words do not seem to be in my vocabulary. But, oh how I wish they were! Not all the time—just SOME of the time. I must have some sort of need to please people, because I have lots of trouble saying, "No," even when saying "Yes" prevents me from taking care of my own needs. Bartleby's stubborn responses eventually led to his demise, but I'd be willing to experiment with a few "I prefer not to"s.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is this post because I asked for Library time tomorrow!?!?! You could've said no!! I wouldn't have been mad, I promise!

Unknown said...

No, Miss OCD! I was more than happy to get your class into the library so they could finish their research projects. I was worrying about the long time between visits already! My problem is all the stuff AFTER the time clock stops . . .

(and you know it's not anonymous when I know exactly who you are!)

R. Mansfield said...

Ah Kathy! Ah humanity!

Anonymous said...

I only use "anonymous" because I don't have a google or blogger account, and I don't feel like creating one! I knew you would know it was me! That is why I didn't even bother signing it!

Glad it wasn't me! Whew!

Darcie said...

David had to read Rip Van Winkle and he told me he had found it at Bartleby.com. I told him who Bartleby was. This was just 2 days ago and we had not talked of Bartleby for years, if ever. Then your post was on him. Poor guy. He must have felt the need to rear up his head and be heard again. Kind of weird.

Countdown to Elianna!