Mr. B-Notary?

Speaking of dogs in the building, one of our favorite neighbors of the "liberry" is a lady named Carrie, who bought the house of our former "liberry" neighbor Mona, when Mona moved away a few months back. Carrie visits us frequently and is a considerable "liberry" donor. Unfortunately, she owns a small yap dog which she insists on bringing with her where ever she goes and almost always brings it into the library when she visits. Mrs. A has been concerned that Mr. B-Natural would catch sight of the dog and then throw a big, righteous, Grumpiest Old Man in all the World hissy that someone else's dog was allowed to come in the building but his was banned. She's not been so worried, though, that she's asked Carrie not to bring her pooch. (Did I mention she's a major donor?) So far, Mr. B-Natural hasn't seen the dog, but there have been some close calls.

In the middle of last week's story hour, Mr. B-Natural came up to the desk clutching a fistful of papers.

"I need to get these notarized," he said. "You a notary?"

"No, I'm not and both of our others are busy at the moment," I said. Then I recalled that Mrs. A was actually in the building and is a notary. I told Mr. B-Natural that I might have one for him after all and went upstairs to find Mrs. A.

Upon returning to the desk, I told him, "She'll be down in a couple minutes." I then tried to find something productive to do while we both stood there waiting.

"I already signed these papers," Mr. B-Natural offered.

I gave him the long, slow burn look. "You're not supposed to sign them until the notary can witness it," I said. "MRS. A won't be able to notarize that unless she witnesses you sign it." THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A NOTARY!

"Ahhhhh, I can just sign it again," he grumped.

Mrs. A came down from her office, saw that he'd already signed the papers and reiterated the purpose of a notary to him. Mr. B-Natural told her he could just sign it again over his previous signature and she reluctantly agreed to witness that. While he was doing so, the door opened and in came Carrie and her pooch. Carrie was dropping something off and came right up to the desk, within a foot of Mr. B-Natural, and passed it over the desk to Mrs. A. Fortunately, Carrie had somewhere else she needed to be and departed before Mr. B-Natural had a chance to look up. As Carrie left, Mrs. A turned and gave me a horrified look at the bullet we'd just dodged. It's not that she's afraid of Mr. B-Natural's wrath, but that doesn't mean she wants to listen to it either. Plus, he would have a point. We're playing favorites with dogs. Granted, Carrie's pooch is far less likely to be riddled with the kind of fleas Bubba has delivered to us in the past, but it's still not being completely fair.

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