Trouble Rears its Fugly Head

Today went pretty good, other than my wanting to strangle a patron or two.

This afternoon, a man and wife came in to print copies of the wife's resume. They signed in and I logged them onto a computer. Hubby sat down while the computer was rebooting.

"You got a copier?" the man asked.

"You mean a photo-copier?" I replied. You can't assume he means photo-copier, because they came in to make prints and he's just as likely to mean printer as anything.

"Yeah," he said.

"Sure. It's up front."

"Well, she'll want to make a copy or two. She can take care of it while I'm doing this."

Having finished its reboot, I logged Hubby onto the computer.

"So these things are hooked up to a printer, somewhere?" he said, indicating the computers. Ah, so he did know what a printer was.

"Yes. It's up front too," I said.

By then Windows had loaded so I figured it was best if I told him what to do next, as he wasn't entirely familiar with our set up. "You can use Microsoft Word to load your document, if you like," I said.

"Nah. All I'm gonna do is hit Ctrl E and load Windows Explorer," he said. He hit Ctrl E a few times but nothing happened.

"Uh, that might not work on here," I said. These are former Gates Foundation computers, after all. By design, they don't let patrons do anything conveniently.

The man was annoyed, but undeterred. "Well, I'll just go up here then," he said, moving the mouse up to My Computer where he started clicking to no effect.

"Um, that probably won't work either," I said. "These computers are designed so patrons can't really get into the guts of the system."

"How the hell am I supposed to open this up, then?"

I allowed a nice little pause.

"Well... you could try using Microsoft Word."

You would think from his reaction to this that Microsoft Word had once killed one of his children or something. He was just like Mel Gibson in The Patriot. Or Mel Gibson in Ransom. Or Mel Gibson in Mad Max. Or Mel Gibson in any of his other movies in which scoundrels abuse, mistreat or otherwise kill Mel's family. (Rule #1 for Villains in Mel Gibson Movies Who Want to Live to See Another Day: Don't kill Mel's kids. Rule #2: No, seriously, stop killing Mel's Kids!!!)

So Hubby started on a rant about Microsoft Word and how he didn't want to "have to do all that" to print a document. About this time, his wife sidled up and started pointing out to him exactly what I wanted to, which was that if he wanted to use anything else he was shit out of luck, only she used much nicer terms. Meanwhile, I decided that if Hubby knew so damn much about computers, as he obviously believed he did, he could just go right ahead and work his expert magic without my interference. I turned around and left him in mid-rant.

After about five minutes, Wifey came up to the circ desk saying her husband couldn't get Word to access the A: Drive.

Ahhh. That feels nice.

I went on back. Sure enough, he had the Open screen up and A: selected, but a little window had popped up saying he didn't have administrative permission to access that drive. I had no explanation for that.

"See! See!!" he said.

I reached around him, being careful not to accidentally throttle him in the process, and closed the message box then reselected the A: Drive. It opened like a charm, displaying the contents of the disk perfectly, further infuriating him.  Hubby then started on a rant about how Microsoft Word screws up the formatting of anything you open in it. I had to give him this point, cause it's generally true. Particularly when the files you're opening AREN'T Microsoft Word-spawned documents in the first place. People come in all the time expecting that their documents composed with obscure, outdated, dinosaur word-processors will open up just peachy on our computers. They are often wrong. ("Uhhhhh, hey! I got me a file what I wrote using the unholy lovechild of an Apple II-E and a Kaypro 4, about 17 years ago. I can open it up here, riiiight? Ya'll still use 5 and a quarter discs, don'tcha?")

Of course, Hubby and Wifey didn't simply look at the screen to see what formatting changes they would need to make. Instead, they immediately dumped to the printer then bitched and moaned when it came out choppy. So back they went for some reformatting, then printed, paid and left.

My day went pretty smoothly after that. Even had a few of my favorite patrons come in to bring joy into my day.

That is... until 6:30 when a Ford Fugly drove up outside and Chester the (Potential) Molester inflicted himself on us.  I hadn't actually noticed the Fugly arrive, and didn't immediately recognize it when I finally did notice it. However, I did recognize the guy hunched over in its open back driver's side door. It was the second patron I would want to strangle today. 

I glared hatred at him through our window, but Chester had evidently not noticed because he was like a deer in headlights when he saw me upon walking through our door.  There he stood, clad not in his usual ratty vest and hole-ridden knit-cap, but rather in a white Army of One T-shirt, shorts and shiny black dress shoes with black socks pulled half way up his calves. He looked like somebody's dad.

Until yesterday, I don't think any of us had seen Chester the (Potential) Molester since my finger-waving dismissal of him in July. Back then, I had I had wondered--both here and to my boss, Mrs. A--what we should do about Chester now that we had laid our cards on the table with him regarding our suspicion--nay certainty--that he was a sick bastard out to ogle pre-teens in our library. I was all for banning him permanently, and suggested this to Mrs. A. She agreed that it was an option to explore, but she wanted to talk to the police about him first and see what they suggested. For all we knew, they might have been investigating him too.

The trouble is, as far as I knew yesterday, Mrs. A still hadn't talked to the cops about him.

We stared at one another for several seconds, expressions of nervous panic crossing his face and fiery death crossing mine. He didn't move any further into the library and certainly didn't attempt his former habit of walking through the entire building to inventory the pre-teen girl population or steal any of our copies of Parenting magazine. He just stood there.

"Um... uh... are there any computers... open?" he mumbled.

There were, in fact, computers open--two of them were free, while Parka occupied the third. I didn't want to let Chester have one, but I didn't really have any grounds to deny him, nor any to kick him out. Mrs. A had not told me that he was banned and I feel certain that's something she would have mentioned. Of course, she didn't say he WASN'T banned either, but she also didn't tell me not to set him on fire or throw a chair at his head, so I decided to err on the side of legality. After several more seconds of watching Chester twist I begrudgingly said, "Yeah."

No, I didn't want him in, but there were no children present nor any likelihood some would arrive before we closed. If I was going to kick him out, I really needed official backup.  I reluctantly logged him onto a computer and returned to the circ-desk.

After a couple of minutes, I thought I heard something from the direction of the computer hall and stairwell. It sounded like someone had just climbed the stairs rather swiftly. Surely Chester didn't think he was going to go upstairs for our magazines as easily as all that? Or was he just trying to complete his compulsory pre-teen inventory?

I grabbed up a stack of books on tape boxes from the shelving cart and headed back to the computer hall. However, Chester was still at his computer and had not gone upstairs. I must have heard someone else, perhaps an upstairs patron who had descended to use the can.

While I was in the area, though, I went ahead and shelved the books on tape just to make Chester nervous with my proximity. I don't know if it was because of my presence or the lack of any kids in the library, but Chester gave up on his computer and left the building before I was even finished with that task.  He did not, however, leave the area. His Fugly remained parked outside while he walked in the direction of the local community college, where he would no doubt suddenly develop the need to use a computer in their library. At least the girls in there would be of age.

I noted his appearance on our desk pad, as well as his new license plate number for good measure. You never know when you might need it.

That was yesterday.

During my shift today, I spoke with my fellow employees about the incident. Turns out, Wednesday was not the first time he's been back since July. He was actually back in on Tuesday too. Mrs. B and Mrs. C were both in on that day and Chester walked right in, did not pause in the door as he did with me, and made his way back to the computer hall. All three computers were indeed full then, so he couldn't just try to sit down at one as he usually likes. Instead, he came back to the circulation desk and asked if all the computers were full.

"Yes, they are," Mrs. B told him. So Chester left, though again did not leave the area entirely. He likes to park his car out front and then wander around the down town area.

I also spoke with Mrs. A about Chester's reappearance and tried to make a case for banning him again. Turns out, Mrs. A has spoken with the local cops about Chester, but they have nothing on him. This being the case, Mrs. A doesn't see how we can ban him completely. Her point is that if she could ban Chester for doing what he does, there would be a whole line of other patrons who would be out just as fast.

"That back there now would be out of here quick!" she said, jutting a thumb in the direction of the computer hall where Parka was uncharacteristically in early for his daily e-skank chatroom session.

Her point is that all Chester would have to do is go to the A CL U tell them he was being denied his God given right to drool over pre-pubescent girls and we would suddenly have a suit against us. Now I believe the A CL U has done a lot of good in many regards in the past. I also think they've fueled a lot of bullshit too, but I don't doubt for a minute that they would take his case. Particularly when he hasn't technically been caught doing anything illegal in our county nor does he have any convictions on his record in his home county WHERE HE WAS ACTUALLY ARRESTED FOR EXPOSING HIMSELF to a girl. We got no legal leg to stand on. Of course, I pointed out that were Chester to bring such a suit, we would instantly have a platoon's worth of library employees from several different counties willing to testify against him.

So Chester is not banned outright. However, Mrs. A told me that if he starts ogling girls again and/or makes me and/or anyone else the least bit uncomfortable, I should feel free to ask him to leave and tell him exactly why. I figure if he gives me any shit about it, I call the cops myself.

This is one of the few times when I sort of wish our library was in a more metropolitan area, with security guards, Wrath of God policies and the whole bit. Only sort of.