There's a rumor going around

There’s a rumor going around in my neighborhood that Marybeth, the local librarian, took her pantyhose off in the middle of the day while stacking books. She left them on the floor wadded up for anyone to trip over. This was enough to start some gossip since Marybeth, now in her 60s, was as straight-laced as a librarian can get.

As the rumor mill began its grind, some said she'd lost her cookies and what a shame that was. Others scoffed at the idea, insisting she'd had her full faculties the day before this event. Some dismissed the story as pure hogwash while others excused the strange behavior, chalking it off to a sudden hot flash. Marybeth was anything but inappropriate. She's a true lady. Whatever the cause, they said, she must've had a good reason.

On my way home, there was more rumor mongering at the grocery counter. “Yeah, I’ve heard,” I told Bill, who seemed to be shocked and awed by the instant demise of Marybeth’s reputation. “I don’t know what to make of it,” he said while bagging my groceries. “She’s always been such an upstanding citizen. What’s this world coming to?”

As the weeks have passed on, the rumors about Marybeth have taken new twists and turns and it seems people are now obsessed with the topic, often with concern but also with some lighthearted humor. Consequently, everyone's chatting it up with each other a lot more than before, bonding over a rumor. If I could think of another time when neighbors were so chummy, I’d have to go back to another era when folks still talked over their backyard fences instead of ignoring each other.

No one knows why Marybeth removed her pantyhose, or if she even did. When one of the boys at the high school stopped in at the library to return a book, he asked her why she did it. Rumor has it she was stumped down to the marrow of her bones and asked the boy what he'd been smoking. Funny thing is, no one knows how the rumor started, but folks had no trouble latching onto it as if it were gospel.

Now they’re not so sure since a new rumor’s going around claiming we'd all been deliberately hoodwinked.