Well, hello! And good morning!

I just got back from a therapeutic trip to the public library, checking out a little festive fiction to put me in the Christmas spirit and just kind of take a happy little break around lunch time.

But when I got there, I realized that for some people, it isn't lunchtime, although they do seem to be taking a break in a slightly eyebrow-raising way.

I'm talking about this man I saw while I was there doing the book-checker-outer thing. He looked like he was in his early thirties. He needed a shave, but otherwise looked clean and normal and like a regular person. Except for the fact that he was wearing full-on nightwear, right down to the slippers. His slippers were that corduroy kind my grandpa used to wear and he was wearing a dapper Black Watch tartan bathrobe belted snugly around his middle. Beneath the bathrobe's lapels and hem peeked a rumpled pair of pajamas in navy blue with white piping. A rolled up copy of the morning newspaper was tucked underneath his arm and as I tracked him with my astonished gaze, mouth hanging open attractively, I'm sure, he put on a pair of sunglasses and headed for the exit.

I turned back to the automated book-checker to see a library clerk on the other side of the counter staring at his back along with me. Our eyes met in a brief, amazed glance and returned to the young man, who was walking to his car, clutching his bathrobe up to his neck against the cold wind.

"And he's not even one of the weird ones," she said knowledgeably, and nodded me a good day.