Crazy from the Heat

Maybe the heat is getting to my head, I don't know. It was like a hundred degrees today in St. Louis. Or maybe I've just reached the breaking point in attempting to achieve the perfection that Mr. Phillips seeks. At any rate, I've had a sort of epiphany about the classification system. It's incredibly, beautifully simple. Some would say it's crazy and, well, maybe it is crazy. I'm not sure how it's going to work with Mr. Phillips and the contest. I'm thinking I might do something pretty radical and enter my own idea in the contest. I know Mr. Phillips would never go for my idea. It's not even worth bringing up to him. I'll just keep it to myself and pretend I'm still working on his misguided project. That's right. I've come to believe now that Mr. Phillips is misguided in his striving for perfection. What does that mean, anyway... "perfection"? How is it humanly possible, and how would you know it if you saw it? Who will be the judge of perfection? Does Mr. Phillips think his colleagues at the library conference are trustworthy arbiters of perfection? The way he talks about his colleagues, I'm surprised he puts any stock in their opinions at all. He is always so scornful and dismissive of his fellow librarians, as though they are all a bunch of idiots. Maybe he just wants to prove something. Maybe he just wants them to bow down before his genius. I don't know. All I know is, I'm through trying to make something perfect.