Mr. Crab, the Third Grumpiest Great White Hunter in All the World (Moving Days J)

JANUARY 7, 2006

I rarely know anything that goes on in our monthly meeting of the “liberry’s” board of directors and that’s fine with me. What does trickle down to me often pisses me off and I would just get myself in trouble by opening my yap were I there to hear it first hand. This is particularly true when it comes to matters of our proposed new “liberry” building. (And I’ve kept my yap mostly shut about it online for two years now for fear of drawing the wrong attention to myself.) Friday’s meeting of the board was different, though. I might still have been in trouble, had I been there, but it would have been for laughing my fool ass off. My boss, Mrs. A, told the staff about it afterwards and assured us that it was a tale that will be retold for months to come.

Some time before the meeting, Mrs. A received a phone call from our eldest and longest-standing board-member, Mrs. Day. To date, Mrs. Day has not been at all wild about our campaign to build a new library. In fact, she voted against it for quite some time before Mr. Kreskin, our former board president, was able to convince her that it looked bad for one lone board member to keep voting against everything, so she jumped on board to save face.

On Friday morning, Mrs. Day phoned to inform Mrs. A that she had a major and exciting announcement to reveal at the board meeting. She wouldn’t give any indication what it regarded, but said it was something huge. Naturally, Mrs. A’s mind wandered to the possibilities. And while waiting for Mrs. Day to turn up for the meeting, Mrs. A and the other four board members—Mr. Eggs, Mrs. Emm, Mrs. Aitch and Dr. Watson—plus our press officer, Mrs. PR, mused aloud as to what the big news might be. Consensus of hope was that Mrs. Day had found someone to donate the remaining funds we need for the new building (around a cool million), but they found it more likely that she was merely going to take credit for securing a rather large donation a neighbor of hers had recently made that everyone already knew about.

Mrs. Day eventually rolled in for the meeting and after much smiling and excitement on her part, she finally revealed her big news. It seems that Mrs. Day has been in contact with everyone’s favorite cranky patron, annual $200 check-donator, frequent $200-donation revocation threatener, and third grumpiest old man in all the world, Mr. Crab, regarding what he might like to donate to the library’s building campaign. (All together now, “$200!”) Mr. Crab claimed that due to obscure IRS laws, he could not donate any actual money to the project because he had “already donated over a million dollars.” (I assumed when I heard this third-hand quote that Mr. Crab meant he’d already donated a million dollars to the library over the years, in which case he would have to be 5000 years old since he only ever gives us $200 at a pop. Now that I’ve thought about it, though, he probably meant he’d given a million dollars to various charitable contributions over the years—no doubt in $200 increments.) Instead of giving us any money, Mr. Crab said he wished to donate something far more valuable: an extensive antique German train set he’d collected and two, count em two, stuffed animals. And when I say "stuffed animals" I’m not talkin’ about Teddy bears or MonChiChis, I mean actual dead animals from Mr. Crab’s collection of animals he has shot, killed and had stuffed, taxidermy-style. According to Mrs. Day, Mr. Crab specifically wishes to donate two stuffed dead animal heads to be hung above the two fireplaces in the proposed new building.

From the way Mrs. A described it to me later, Mrs. Day couldn’t have been more thrilled about this donation. She beamed at the members of the board as she told them, barely able to contain her joy. This, to me, is merely proof that Mrs. Day's mind automatically defaults to the 1930s and 40s, when men such as Ernest Hemingway went around cheerfully blowing the hides off whatever creatures struck their fancy, for fun, then hung their corpses up for all to see and there were no activist groups to raise a stink about it. (By the way, while I think hunting for sport is abhorrent, I’m all for blowing the hides off of creatures you intend to eat, provided they are in season and/or the ranger isn’t looking. "Yeah, take my pic-a-nic basket again, you f*ckers!”)

The board’s reaction to the news was far more modern. I’m told Mrs. Emm and Mrs. PR began laughing openly at the absurdity of it; Mr. Eggs and Dr. Watson sat dumbfounded—Dr. Watson, particularly so, as this was his very first meeting as a board member; Mrs. A just shook her head in full knowledge of the kind of shit storm that would rain down on us from the local hippie-activist community should these heads actually make their way anywhere near our new building; and Mrs. Aitch was furious, but mostly at Mr. Crab’s assertion that there was some kind of million-dollar lifetime donation cut-off.

Between bursts of laughter, Mrs. Emm managed to ask what kind of heads Mr. Crab wished to give us. Mrs. Day wasn’t certain, but said that Mr. Crab has an elephant head above his own desk so maybe that would be one of them.

(It should be noted that Mr. Crab reportedly also has an elephant-leg golf-bag. You heard me... Elephant. Leg. Golf. Bag. When Mrs. A told me about it, I said, “That’s just awful. I mean, I can see an elephant-foot umbrella stand, and all, but a golf-bag is just excessive.” Mrs. A then said she really wished I had been at the meeting, because that was exactly the kind of running commentary that the board members began making around that time. Go board.)

For her part, Mrs. Day seemed oblivious to the ridicule the rest of the board was heaping on her major announcement. She must have thought their tearful laughter was out of joy at such a golden opportunity to turn our new library into some sort of big-game hunting lodge. She even further suggested that one of the heads might, in fact, be that of a polar bear, which Mr. Crab reportedly also owns.

Eventually, Mrs. Emm was able to compose herself long enough to suggest that we agree to accept the gifts, but only with no restrictions as to their use, so we would be free to sell the items to raise money for the project. Mr. Crab will most likely hate this, grump about it at length, retract his offer of donation and then threaten to withhold his $200 again.

“Well if he doesn’t stop acting so crappy to our staff, it’s going to be his head up above the fireplace cause they’re going to kill him,” Mrs. A reportedly told the board.

Soon the room calmed down a bit and the board began discussing such possibilities as a road trip to Mr. Crab's home in order to view the items proposed for donation. Immediately, various board members began vocally noting that they were likely to be out of town on that day, whatever day that should be, but Mrs. A insisted that such a trip could be delayed until all of them were able to attend.

After Mrs. A finished her tale for me, I advised her that we really did not want to be AT ALL beholden to Mr. Crab or we'd never hear the end of it until the day he died, and even then he'd probably have it set into his will that his heirs must continue to lord it over us until the end of time or be cut off from his reputed massive fortune.

Then I realized that it might be worth accepting Mr. Crab's animal heads, if only to piss off Mr. and Mrs. Smiley, who are among our more vocal militant animal rights types in the area and who have, in the past several months, continued desperately trying to torpedo this new building project using any stray hope they think might float no matter how ludicrous. Seeing an elephant head above our new fireplace might be just the thing to finally remove the remaining Grinchy vestiges of sanity they still possess.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Smiley's People (Moving Days B)

The idea of building a new library building had been in the works for years before I started working there, but it gained momentum only a couple of years after I came aboard. Not that I had anything to do with it, as this was all in the hands of our board of directors, led then by the now late yet still infamous Mr. Kreskin.

Yes, Mr. Kreskin has passed on. Not long after I'd started at the "liberry," I learned that he had been diagnosed with a couple of different slow-growing yet ultimately terminal forms of cancer. And it was not long after this diagnosis that plans to build a new library building were put into a higher gear than they had been running at. I believe he saw that he had a limited amount of time on his hands and decided to make the new "liberry" a reality. From what Mrs. A has told me, Mr. Kreskin saw the project as his legacy to the Tri-Metro area.

There had been a couple of false starts to the project in the past, such as the proposal to buy up existing buildings in the area and convert them into a new library, but time and time again the issue of lack of parking reared up and we were forced to return to the idea of simply building a brand new facility, with triple the space for books, a gigantic multi-purpose room that could be booked for use by the public, much improved story-hour and craft facilities, handicapped access on all levels and, naturally, adequate parking. Grants were applied for and attained, outside donations were sought and came pouring in, century-long leases were acquired with the owners of the land on which the new building was proposed to be built, architects were hired, meetings were had and everything seemed on track.

Once a design had been accepted and approved by the local historical preservation society, a number of public viewings were arranged for the plans for the new building. And since it was still early in the process, these viewings were also forums for anyone with differing opinions as to the validity of the project to voice said opinions and become a part of the process. One such soul with a differing opinion was a long lost rogue of ours, Mr. Smiley, the Second Grumpiest Old Man in all the World. Mr. Smiley attended each of the public meetings regarding the new "liberry," looked at all the plans, heard all the explanations, ate the provided hors d'oeuvres and said nothing whatsoever yay or nay. Then, as soon as contracts were signed and ground officially broken on the building project itself, suddenly Mr. Smiley couldn't make enough public complaints ag'in' it.

Now, keep in mind that this is a man who, according to Mrs. A, spent the previous twenty years complaining bitterly about how inadequate to his needs our library was, how small it was, how there was never any place for him to find a moment's peace within it without being disturbed by the voices of children or--and I'm not making this next part up AT ALL--the ticking of clock hands, etc. You would think, therefore, that a new facility that offered a respite from all that would have been of great interest to him. Not so.

See, in addition to being the second grumpiest old man in all the world, Mr. Smiley is also an old hippie protest-marcher from the `60s who spent a great deal of his time back then fighting against The Man in all his forms via said protests as well as through a hippie protest-marcher newspaper publication of which he and the future Mrs. Smiley were editors. Now, from his age, clothing and demeanor alone, I could have guessed his identity as a former hippie, still bitter over his cause's side having essentially lost. The full details of his story, however, I later learned via a nonfiction work written and self-published by Mrs. Smiley which serves as a history of their time as cause-warriors around the country, specifically the work she and Mr. Smiley did with their publication. And I might have remained unaware of Mrs. Smiley's book and their history had a copy of it not been donated to the "liberry" at the height his campaign against the new building. It made for interesting reading and certainly gave us an idea of what Mr. Smiley was capable of when it came to causes he cared about. It did not, however, shine a lot of light on precisely why he cared so much about stopping the construction of our proposed new library building. This isn't to say that he and his small cadre of followers didn't offer many explanations for why they opposed it, but most of the offered reasons fell firmly into the category of Things We're Pulling Out of our Collective Ass in Order to Derail this Project By Any Means Possible, (which is a pretty standard delaying tactic among cause groups of all stripes).

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Mr. Crab Finally Poops

Mr. Crab, third grumpiest old man in all the world, happened in this week, approached the circ-desk and inquired to Mrs. B as to the whereabouts of our copy of the Wa11 Street J0urnal. Now, it might seem odd that Mr. Crab would ask about the location of our Wa11 Street J0urnal copy when we have a perfectly good and well-identified periodicals section upstairs where one might expect to find such things as, say, periodicals. No, Mr. Crab's reasoning behind his question is two-fold: A) he firmly believes that, two years ago, we spent six full months without a subscription to the Wa11 Street J0urnal and he enjoys broaching that particular subject even though reality reflects that we only spent about a month and a half without it; and B) at our "liberry" the mail does not arrive on a schedule preferable to anyone, except, I assume, our postmaster.

For years, our mail used to arrive faithfully each morning at around 9:30. In the past few months, however, our mailman's route has been fiddled with by the postmaster on a number of occasions, causing it to arrive later and later in the day. (We know this because our mailman doesn't like it either and ratted out his boss to us.) First we started getting our mail around 1p. Then, it arrived closer to 2, then 3. Now it can come anywhere between 3 and 5 o'clock and arrives earlier only when the mailman has several large and heavy packages for us and doesn't want to have to lug them around all day.

Still, when the mail does finally arrive, we're rarely in any hurry to put the Journal in its place on the newspaper rack. The only people I've ever known to actually read it are Mr. B-Natural (first grumpiest old man in all the world), Mr. Smiley (second grumpiest old man in all the world, but who hasn't graced us with his presence for over a year now), Mr. Crab (the aforementioned third) and a long unseen patron who used to refer to the Wa11 Street J0urnal as "the Capitalist Tool," which, in turn, was how I came to refer to him. Often, the Journal just stays on the lower shelf of our downstairs shelving cart awaiting some good soul to haul it upstairs. Often, it remains there until closing time, when we finally do haul it upstairs and lob it atop the pile of its brethren. Also, due to rapid circ-desk duty employee turnover, the person manning the desk doesn't always know whether or not the mail has arrived, so if anyone comes in seeking the Journal, (i.e. Mr. B-Natural or Mr. Crab), we tell them to first check the shelving cart and if it's not there then it's either in the periodicals section upstairs or it hasn't arrived yet. It's a pretty simple formula, but these two horse's asses don't care to remember it and ask us every time.

During Mr. Crab's visit, Mrs. B happened to know that the mail had not arrived. She explained this to him and noted that the mail might not arrive for hours yet. Mr. Crab was, naturally, quite grumpy about this. Mrs. B told me that she had expected he would next probably complain about the lateness of the mail, but instead he complained about something else.

"Do you know what your library director said to me the other day?" Mr. Crab said, leaning closer.

"What?" Mrs. B asked.

"I asked her if the Wa11 Street J0urnal had arrived and she told me to look on this cart and if it wasn't there it might be upstairs." And he said this in a tone that suggested any right-thinking person should be appalled. Then he finally uttered the words we've been waiting to hear for years: "She won't be getting a donation next year."

Why Mrs. A's suggestion set Mr. Crab off when the rest of the staff have told him the exact same thing on multiple occasions, I'm none too sure. Mrs. A is not a fan of Mr. Crab, so perhaps his finely attuned senses detected her dislike. Whatever the case, Mrs. B didn't know how to respond to him. When she told me about it, though, my brain nearly hemorrhaged from the amount of possibilities that flew through it.

"You should have told him, `Oh, thank God it's finally over! At last, we can stop living in fear of you!' "

Mrs. B laughed.

"No, wait! You should have dropped to your knees, burst into tears and wailed, `Ohhhh no! Oh, dear God, no! Pleeease don't take away your donation! Please, please, pleeeeaaaaase! How can we possibly go on without all two hundred of your dollars?! Ohhh, our poor poor budget! We'll have to fire the staff!' "

" `And then who will let you check things out on their cards when you forget yours?' " Mrs. B added.

"`Oh, lordy lordy, what will we do? What WIIIIILLL we dooooooo?!!!' "

First Day Back

Today was my first day back in the "liberry" saddle following our two-week trip to Guatemala and El Salvador. It was largely uneventful as far as the usual "liberry" madness goes, but eventful in other respects. I popped in at 1p, laden with souvenirs for the library staff. Mrs. C and Mrs. B were the only ones in the front room, and they immediately asked how my trip went.

"Fantastic!" I said.

"I've got big news too," Mrs. C whispered.

"Yeah?"

She nodded furiously, then whispered, "I'm expecting."

This is huge news for Mrs. C. She and Mr. C have been trying to have a child for the past year and it's not been a fun time. Well, I'm sure it's been a fun time in some respects, but the results have not been what they've wanted. So congrats to Mr. and Mrs. C!

The staff, of course, had plenty of questions concerning my trip. Unfortunately, giving any kind of overview of a two-week mission trip in a short period of time is a very difficult thing to do. We had such an amazing time, saw and heard of such harrowing and heart-warming things and had so many mini-adventures in the process that you can't really Cliff's Notes it effectively. But I gave them a few highlights and lowlights. And once Mrs. A and Mrs. J came downstairs too, I gave everyone their souvenirs.

I bought five colorful pottery sun-faces at an Indian market in Antigua. They're essentially the same little ornamental sculpture, painted in different shades. Unfortunately, three of them were slightly chipped in a horribly true Continental Airlines-related incident at the Houston International Airport on the way home. (The chipping was actually getting off light in this case, as Ashley had part of a much larger pottery piece broken during the same incident.) Still, these were only chipped on the edges of a couple of the sun rays, so they’re still nice to display. I apologized for bringing them broken pottery, but gave them over anyway.

I also brought them each their own bag of fried plantain chips. These are plantains sliced lengthwise, salted and fried like potato chips. They’re just some of the most tasty fried chips you could ever want, though I doubt they are much better for you than potato chips. Sweet and salty all at once, they’re just tasty and good. Everyone broke open their bags and began sampling.

I asked what sort of incidents had occurred at the library in my absence? I fully expected them to relate something that I would fully regret having missed—like Chester and Parka having a shootout in the parking lot or something. Nope. The only notable incident they could recall was Mr. Stanky putting in an appearance yesterday and being particularly stinky even for him.

“You know,” I began, “I smelled a pretty wide array of B.O. when I was in Guatemala, but none of it came anywhere close to touching his.”

The only other possible incident was reported on our circ-desk note-pad. Our weekender, Miss K, noted that one of our long-time patrons, Mr. Crab, (who is also a long-time library donor and not afraid to let you know that should anything not go quite his way) had been in on Saturday and was completely pissed off that he couldn't use his old library card from the old nearly year-gone VTLS system. Mind you, Mr. Crab has a new library card on the new nearly year-old system, but he still carries his old card with him and is insulted that he can't use it. Miss K reported that Mr. Crab said he thought the way we had set up the new system was done in an unintelligent fashion and he insisted that we put his old barcode number from his old card in the new patron record so he could use it instead of his new card. I’m still not entirely sure what this man’s beef truly is, but even on his best days Mr. Crab could give Mr. B-Natural and Mr. Smiley a run for their Grumpiest and Second Grumpiest Old Man in all the World titles. Ms. K reported that she wasn’t sure what to do so she added the man’s old barcode to his patron record in addition to his new one just to shut him up. She indicated which barcode we should delete in case this was wrong. Mrs. A then had a note at the end of the account telling us to delete the old barcode.

I'm somehow sure this won't be the end of it.

Who's got the 10 and a half?

Yup. That's right. It's time for another 10 hour shift for the Juice man. Mrs. A and Mrs. C are out for the day at a meeting of the minds over in Town-D's branch.

Running tally for the day proceeds here...

8:50 a.m.-- I arrive at the library. There's a large SUV parked out front that I don't recognize. I figure it's a patron waiting for us to open, but no one is in it and no one is banging on the door to get in. I go to unlock the back door and find it's already unlocked and slightly ajar. Uh oh. Now I'm thinking the patron is inside, taking advantage of a door left unlocked by one of the librarians as they departed this morning. This kind of thing has happened before. As I cautiously round the corner of the computer hall, I get a line of sight on the circ desk and see Mrs. A there. Whew! Turns out it was Mr. A's SUV.

8:52-- I turn on the light switch for upstairs and blow the breaker.

9:00-- Mrs. C turns on the downstairs light switch and also blows the breaker. Mrs. A is irritated at this and swears we will not be paying to rewire the building since we're within a two year spitting distance of a brand new building altogether.  As a result of the breaker blows, though, a third of the lightbulbs in the front room have gone.  At 5'9", I'm still the tallest employee so it's always my job to change them. No doubt half the bulbs upstairs have also blown.

9:20-- Both patrons who've come in so far have given me cheerful yet marble-mouthed greetings that I don't understand. They are not together.

9:33-- First phone call for Mrs. A.

9:41-- Mr. & Mrs. Smiley arrive.


10:00-- I start changing bulbs.

10:19-- Boring assed task for the day: Stuffing fund drive envelopes. Mmm, boy howdy! At least I have Shawn Colvin's Whole New You album playing on the circ computer to keep me company. Great album.

10:35-- First computer patron of the day.

10:50-- A library staff member from Town-R's branch phones. Mind you, she doesn't identify herself whatsoever so I didn't know she wasn't a patron at first. The conversation followed:

CALLER: Is MRS. A there?

ME: No, I'm sorry, she's out of town for a meeting today. Can I take a message?

CALLER: Well... When I turned on my computer it said I have an error.

ME: (Realizing this is probably another library and not some derranged patron) Uhhh. What sort of error?

CALLER: (Dimly) It said "an error."

ME: Okayyy. Did you try turning it off and back on?

CALLER: Yes. It still says I have an error. I just want to know how to get it to stop telling me I have an error.

ME: (Since our branch is the regional hub for all computer issue requests, I realize I'll need to note this.) Well, if you'll give me your name I'll tell MRS. C when she gets back this afternoon.

CALLER: (Ignoring my question) I can still use the computer. I just want to know how to get it to stop telling me "error."

ME: (Trying not to get angry) I realize that. If I can have your name, please, I'll let MRS. C know about it.

CALLER: (Adopting a tone that says I should know full well exactly who I'm talking to) This is TOWN-R library.

Actually, I really should have known. If I were to make a list of the most computer illiterately staffed libraries in the area, Town-R would top it.

11:19-- Out of coffee and in need of a change in music. I'm going to my car for some Neil Finn.

11:40-- The wife calls to say she's going to join me for lunch.

12:15 p.m.-- The wife joins me for lunch. She brings us tasty non-Atkins approved goodies such as pizza and a pecan encrusted stickybun, both baked by one of our fine downtown bakeries.

12:44--Holy shit! Stoner Lad just came in! I cannot believe my luck. Just when I thought today was going to be way more boring than I'd hoped, a long lost Rogue makes an appearance. We've not seen Stoner Lad in here for well over two years. He walks up to the desk and says, "Hey, uh, long time." Then he mumbles his way through a request to use a computer, saying he has something he really needs to print out. (Dare I hope more angsty half-literate teenage screw-letters?)

"Sure thing," I say.

After I log him on he says, "Uh, how clear are the lines today?"

"Pretty clear. We got DSL since you were here last."

"Sweet!"

Stoner Lad still dresses like he used to, which is to say small town gangsta wannabe, but with an auto-racing themed ball cap. His facial hair has gotten better too, as evidenced by his pointy goatee. He also dosen't seem to be actively "on" anything and has no trouble making eye contact when he speaking. Perhaps he's been away in rehab?

12:46-- A lady comes in and asks to use the bathroom. I don't figure this out until later when they leave together, but this turns out to be Stoner Lad's mom. Stoner lad prints out a few pages, pays for them and then leaves with mom, saying, "Bye." On their way out, she says something about having an old wallet of his with his library card still in it. Yeah, his OLD library card. Looks like maybe he's back in the area for a while.

12:55-- An assistant librarian in a neighboring county, who's head librarian is currently at the same meeting that Mrs. A is at, phones to ask to speak to Mrs. A. "Oh, wait... she's at that meeting," he says. Riiiiiiight.

1:02-- Oh, great! It's old rogue day! Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch just came in.

1:10-- Jimmy leaves after paying for his prints. I am irritated that he is coming here again, particularly since from everything we knew a few months back he was supposed to be going to jail for embezzling money from his employer. The last we'd heard he was supposed to have received his sentence in June, but we never learned what it was. He's been in a few times since then and was in yesterday. Evidently he's under house arrest or town arrest or maybe just was let off altogether. Who knows. Maybe he turned state's evidence against Bladderboy and was given a light slap on the wrist. Never did hear if the cops caught Bladders after their high-speed chase a while back.

1:22-- Harry the Killer Midget and Buddy come in. I've not written about Buddy before. He's a mentally handicapped man who comes in with an Unobstructed Doors aid. I call him Buddy because he once asked me if I would be his buddy, therefore I assume he is mine as well. Buddy is a really nice guy. His only major distinguishing characteristics, beyond the whole being my buddy thing, are that he's very tall and he always wants to know if Mary is working today. Nearly every time he comes in he asks one of the staff if Mary is working today. We always tell him, "No, Mary's not here today," at which point he responds, "Mary must be at home." None of us know who Mary is, nor has anyone named Mary ever worked here in the past thirty years, so we're not sure who he means. He didn't ask about Mary today.

2:48-- I've been running kind of silent. Mrs. C is supposed to come in to relieve me so I can go on break, but I don't know exactly when. Gotta keep my nose clean til then.

3:00-- Still no Mrs. C. One of our board members, Mrs. Aitch, comes in to do some fund-drive letter related paperwork. I'm jamming out to Neil Finn's One Nil when she arrives. Not sure if she approves.

3:50-- Mrs. C arrives to relieve me. I head to the post office to ship out ebay auction items, pop by the shoe store where I fail to find any decent shoes.

4:30-- I swing by the comic shop for the latest Bloodhound, Marvel Knights Spider-Man, the Supreme Power spin-off Doctor Spectrum book and something else I can't recall off hand. I'm terribly happy that the comic shop guy is now stocking Neil Gaiman's Sandman collections, after months and months of me bugging him about it. Now I'm going to have to do a Sandman symposium to get folks to buy it--uncultured peons!

4:45-- I pop by Ornathological Coffee, (not its real name), the local gallery/coffeeshop down the street for a cup of Sumatran coffee that is just slightly not hot enough, but is nevertheless tasty. While I'm there, I hear a familiar voice say, "So, how many books do I have now?" I turn to see Mrs. West, one of our regular patrons. Mrs. West almost always has books on hold with us. This is because she goes down the list of all the latest bestsellers that are out and has us put her on hold for them. Then she asks us to put her on hold for just about every other new fiction arrival as well. We're happy to do this. Trouble is, she NEVER answers the phone when we call. We have it on good authority that she's usually at home when we call, she just won't answer for whatever reason. This would be okay too, but she also refuses to purchase an answering machine saying they're annoying. Yes, they are annoying, especially when they don't pick up the phone and allow us to tell you your books are in. So our hold shelf is often CHOKED with holds for Mrs. West, which after 5 days have to be passed to the next patron on the list. I told her she had three waiting for her. She said that sounded like enough to justify a visit up the hill.

4:50-- I'm back on the job.

4:55-- A different board member, Mrs. Emm, comes in from the meeting they were having next door and asks if its true we have music CD's. It is. We got the same allotment of Remainder Closet material all libraries got after the big music industry settlement. I tell her that I don't promise it's all good, but there are some gems here and there. I guarantee her that the Shawn Colvin and Ben Folds Five are quality. She goes over and finds lots of things she likes (including the Colvin & Folds), then begins suggesting music to me, including Kas3y Chamb3rs and Gr3g Br0wn. "Br0wn's kind of folky," Mrs. Emm says, adding, "I like all sorts of music, though. Folk, rock, country, rap... I love Eminem!" I sort of just stared at her blankly for a few seconds on that one. Nothing against Em, but I just had trouble reconciling whether Mrs. Emm was really into his stuff or if she was just searching for some kind of street cred with me and Mrs. C.

5:00-- Mrs. C leaves via the back door before any of the other board members she see's lurking out front can find her and assign her something she doesn't want to have to stay extra to do. Good for her!

5:10-- Oooh. I'm asked by a computer patron to override our internet blocking software. It's the same guy who always asks us for overrides. In fact, I think he's the only guy who's ever asked us for an override. He's always trying to look at some album cover involving J essica Ra bbit. For some reason in the past I've never been able to get the override to work properly, but today it does. (And no, I didn't get a peek at it before I turned the station back over to him.)

5:27-- We are paid a brief and pleasant visit by the brother of the Purple Nun.

5:39-- Mrs. West, true to her word, comes in for her books.

6:03-- I begin attempting to eat my supper; a nice hunk of pork roast that I first cooked two nights back, plus some cheese and a spinach/artichoke dip I made. Mmm tasty, I love it.

6:22-- Still haven't been able to finish my food. We're plenty busy.

6:32-- A patron asks if he's smelling good food from one of the nearby restaurants or if that's coming from my food. I say, "Yup, that's probably my pork roast." It's not even heated and it smells good.

7:00-- The last patron departs, making sure to print out four pages just after I finish the daily cash box count. Thanks! I lock the doors and try to finish up my closing duties.

7:03-- Still closing up when someone starts pounding on the door to get in. Sorry, we's closed.

7:05-- Going home. It's a day.

Conference Week: Day 3

Day 3 of the conference is underway. There is no day 2.

I'm only working an 8 hour shift today. As my wife would say, "God forbid you have to put in a full day. Oh, the torture." In fact, as a fourth year medical student who has regularly had to pull 12 and 14 hour shifts, she had very little sympathy for my poor tired feet on Wednesday. And rightly so.

Today, I'm wearing better shoes. It will be just me and Mrs. J til 1, when Mrs. B comes in to join us for Freaky Friday.

It's raining... It's cold... The chronicle continues...

8:50 a.m.-- I arrive for work. The circuit breaker for the lights upstairs immediately blows, so I have to go into the hobbit door under the stairs and turn it back on. I do notice that Mrs. A's husband, Mr. A, has been in to replace the bolts in the rolling ladder.

8:56-- Folks already banging on the door to get in. Nobody told them to get out of their cars and come stand in the rain. We open at 9, people. I believe there's a sign on the door to that effect.

9:00-- I open the doors. One of the two patrons waiting says, "Well, it's about time." He's actually joking with us, though it takes me a moment to figure that out and I can feel the fires within me rise.

9:04-- Because we were closed yesterday, the after-hours book return box is packed to the tits. We have to empty it in the rain, which is made even more problematic by Mrs. J's insistence on leaving the drop box's interior book bin pulled out IN THE RAIN ITSELF. Making matters even worse, we both keep dropping piles of books and tapes and sundry items onto the wet and puddle-soaked ground, forcing us to wipe them off with an old shirt from the Dead T-Shirt bin. It's the last shirt in there. Someone really needs to do the wash.

9:10-- Already the foot wiping has begun. I want to scream, "Hey, that's not a door mat, it's a runner carpet. They are not the same thing. If you want to wipe your feet, might I suggest you use the actual door mat that we've provided just OUTSIDE the door!"

9:15-- I finally get around to running the stats for Wednesday. We had 215 checkouts and 145 checkins. This is not a record or anything, but it is a damn sight more than we usually have.

9:33-- Marlene Doodah (not her real name) phones to ask us to renew a book on tape for her. She explains that she loaned it to a friend who subsequently loaned it to another friend, so she needs more time. I look her up and renew it.

10:09-- The REAL Marlene Doodah (still not her real name) phones to ask us to renew the same book on tape for her. I tell her that someone claiming to be Marlene Doodah already phoned to renew it this morning. She explains that this was a clever ruse by a friend of hers to whom she had loaned the book on tape.

10:41-- Another foot wiper.

11:06-- More foot wipers.

11:31-- An asshole phones. He was in last Friday and checked out a couple of the books he needed for the contractor's license test. He gave me a tremendous amount of shit back then over the fact that we charge the full price of the book as a deposit. (Note: He had the full amount for the two books in cash on his person at the time, to the tune of $112, and did leave it as a deposit for them.) I told him we have to do that because if we just charged a $10 deposit like we used to then we never see these pricey books again. He also gave me shit over the fact that we only loan the books out on a first-come-first-served basis and cannot reserve them for specific days, and that we also only loan these books for one week at a time.  (We do allow a renewal of another week.)

Last Friday, I stressed to him the importance of calling to renew them if he needed them longer, because according to the book deposit policy, that he both read and signed, the deposit is forfeit if they're late. We tell this to everyone who checks them out, because 9 times out of 10 they never call. I should also say that most of us here hate this policy. We would frankly rather have our books back instead of having to take people's money, particularly when they usually have brought them back, albeit a few days late.

So today Mr. Asshole calls to renew his books. I can tell from his tone he already has an attitude about it. I look his record up and try to renew them but one of them will not renew because someone else has it on hold. He was instantly furious.

"But you told me that you can't put them books on hold!"

"No. I told you you couldn't reserve them for a specific day. You can still place them on hold, though." Trying to still be diplomatic with him, I offered to go and make sure we didn't have an extra copy on the shelf, which I could then give to the holding patron. We did not.

"So what does that mean for me?" he said, the attitude thick.

"Well... basically, it means you need to bring the book back today."

Barely under his breath, he says "Aw, that's bullshit."

"Sir, my hands are tied on this. The computer will not allow me to renew the book for you if someone already has it on hold. There is nothing I can do to help you."

"Yeah, well that's bullshit," he says. "Maybe I'll try to bring it back today."

At this point my attitude is, Do what you like, dude. If you don't want your $70 back, that's just peachy with me.

11:49-- Kanji the Kid puts in an appearance. He's a guy in his early 20s who I believe has Asperger's syndrome. He is called Kanji the Kid because, according to him, he has memorized every character in the Japanese Kanji alphabet--or at least all the ones he can get his hands on through interlibrary loans. From what little research I've done on the subject myself, there are several thousand such characters in Japanese alone. Kanji used to be a fairly regular patron, but all he would get were interlibrary loans for books of Kanji. He would often keep these for months past their due date and refused to return them until we had harangued him with calls for weeks to the point of infuriating him. Only then he would bring them back.

Today he returned our video of Webber's musical Cats as well as the trade paperback of Bone Vol.2: The Great Cow Race. I told him we had Vol 3 and 4 on the shelf if he wanted those.

"What about Volume 1?!" he asked loudly. "You have Volume 2, Volume 3 and Volume 4, so it would only make sense that you should have Volume 1 too!" Speaking of volume, Kanji always speaks at his loudest and has no inside voice.

"We own it," I said. "It's just been checked out for quite a while." That seemed to satisfy him.

1:00 p.m.-- Mrs. B arrives. I warn her of Mr. Asshole, who may be on the way. I will likely have to curtail my blogging now that a computer saavy person is here.

1:10 -- Parka arrives.

1:20-- I eat lunch. Patron floodgates open, but at least we have the staff for it.

1:35-- I go on break.

2:30-- I return. Mr. Asshole has not come in while I'm gone.

2:40-- My wife arrives to eat a Dairy Queen Pumpkin Pie Blizzard in front of me. She's been craving one for weeks and figured since today marks the first day of a two week vacation for her she'd chow down on one. She offers me some, but I decline.

3:04-- Harry the Killer Midget comes downstairs and leaves. Harry's not actually violent and would be hard-pressed to actually kill someone. But he IS a midget. He's with the Unobstructed Doors group.

3:10-- Mr. Smiley comes in, takes his latest ILL and leaves. Afterward, the wife and I and Mrs. B stand around the circ desk telling stories about his tantrums of the past. Like how he used to like to come in and read, but would always take the batteries out of or unplug any clock near him because the tiny clicking of its second hand made too much noise for him.

4:21-- Brent and Brice: The New Devil Twins and around four of their neighborhood colleagues arrive for some computer using. I have to break it to them that they can't use the computer cause they're still twelve. Meanwhile, we've managed to misplace the prints they illegally made  again so I have no actual proof that they haven't already paid for them and taken them home. Two of their friends are indeed fourteen, so they are sent back to print stuff out on B&B's behalf. Fine by me as long as they get paid for. After a few minutes, Mrs. B finds the errant prints from before. I take them back and show them to Brent. He claims he had to make new prints of the same material because we'd lost the first batch before and he paid for the second round. This makes sense, except that I don't know who let him on the computer to do it. I let him go.

5 p.m.-- Time to head home. Not for the whole weekend, though. Yep, I've got to be back at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning for a Saturday shift fill-in gig and I'll have a Sunday one after that. That's okay. I don't mind, cause Mrs. A gave me all the days off I wanted for Thanksgiving. Plus it just increases my chances that Mr. Asshole will come back in while I'm around.

Conference Week: Day 1

(Reconstruction of Eaten Blog Entry, with a big thanks to Phil and Sam for sending me the original pre-chewed feed which I've now reincorporated)

Today is the first day of our state's "liberry" association conference, taking place in a resort hotel up in the northern part of the state somewhere.

Am I going? No.

Do I want to go? No.

Are me and Mrs. J the only staff members in house today? Yes.

Am I wearing shoes appropriate to a 10 hour shift? No. (These Skechers tend to start biting after about four hours. My feet are screwed, but it's my own fault.)

Am I anticipating "liberry" goodness/badness to shortly ensue? Hey, it's 10 hours in the crazy house here. Of course there's going to be standard issue "liberry" activity, both good and bad.

8:54 a.m.-- a full six minutes before we open, I get a phone call asking to speak to Mrs. C. I have a feeling that the phrase "I'm sorry, she's out of town at a conference for the rest of the week" will leave my mouth several thousand times today.

9:24-- Yet another call, this time for Mrs. A.

9:44-- And we have our first Rogue sighting of the day as Mr. Smiley comes in. He brings Mrs. Smiley with him. Mmm, that's some grumpy old people goodness for your ass.

9:58-- More people phoning for Mrs. A.

10:06-- We get our first computer patrons of the day. Two at once. Unrelated.

10:10-- Mrs. J informs me that some mischief-minded turd-blossom has removed the bolts that hold the back guard-rail portion of our rolling step-ladder in place. As a result, she nearly tumbled ass over teakettle off the top of it while trying to shelve a book. That's right, Mrs. J might have been killed because some asshat kid thought it would be funny to use his dad's leatherman to unscrew the bolts. The culprit seems to have stolen the bolts as well. Now I have to go put a sign on it telling patrons to stay the hell off of it before someone else tries to take a header.

10:11-- Someone comes in looking for Mrs. A.

10:15-- One of our board of directors, Mrs. Day, calls to say she's going to come in to sign checks and is on her way. This doesn't actually mean she's on her way. This means at some point during business hours today she'll roll in, probably at an inopportune moment, and will likely give me shit about having to come in and sign the paychecks two full days early, like I'm twisting her arm and forcing her to come in. SHE CALLED ME!

10:22-- A patron asks if we're closed tomorrow because of Toyota. I say, "No, it's Veteran's Day. What about Toyota?" He explains that Toyota will be filming a car commercial along mainstreet in Town-A, just down the hill from the library. They're apparently going to close off the entire area for traffic throughout the day. Good thing we won't be open.

11:34--Mrs. Day comes in to sign checks, several hours earlier than I expected. She doesn't even give me any crap, though she does have an ILL request for a book that does not exist in the entire state system.

12:40 p.m.-- I see a crabby looking lady trying unsuccessfully to put her books into our locked after hours book drop box out front. She must know that books that actually make it into the box are considered fine free, because when she finally brings them in I see that they are 89 days overdue.

12:51-- We're having surprisingly low traffic today. We did 169 checkouts yesterday, which is a busy day for us. I was expecting a patron flood since I'm the only guy manning the building. We've actually been able to search the shelves for overdues and mail the notices out, though. Ooh, that reminds me to remove Mrs. 89 Days overdue notice from the pile before we waste 37 cents on her.

12:55-- Parka makes his first appearance of the day. Oddly, he's not clad in his namesake parka despite how cold it actually is outside.

12:56-- I go to sign Parka on a computer. I have to wait for it to reboot from the ground up, cause the last user shut it down rather than just logging off. While I wait, two clients from the Unobstructed Doors Mental Health Assistance Organization come in and their aid heads them right for the restroom. One of them cuts a fart that is impossible to ignore. (*I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped... I will not let Parka see me laughing at the handicapped* )

1:45-- After nearly half an hour of circulation silence, I attempt to eat my lunch. Staff lunches are an odd phenomenon here. No matter what time we decide to eat, as soon as food is unwrapped and begun to be consumed, the patron floodgates open up and we're suddenly swamped. Food presence also tends to act as a magnet for one or more of our board members to come in—usually the one who thinks it's just horrible that the staff eats at the circulation desk in front of God and everybody. Hey, once we get the new library built and actually have a break room we can move the party somewhere else. Right now it's either the picnic table outside in the cold or Mrs. A's tiny office or the restroom. Of course, the moment I unburped the lid of my salad container today, the front door started swingin'.

1:50-- Parka comes up to complain that the internet is slow. He's enlisted the testimony of a fellow internet crowd member to back up his claim. Naturally, he assumes I have the power to do something about it. I don't, but I go reboot his computer for him anyway. He's lucky I don't go into a diatribe about how slow things USED to be a year and a half ago, back when we had dialup speed instead of cushy DSL.

2:18-- The Toyota crew evidently thinks our nearly post-Autumn town isn't foliated enough for them. Patrons have come in and mentioned that the crew is downtown in a cherry picker attaching leaves to the bare trees in front of city hall. From our side window, I can see them doing this.

2:43-- A female patron returns eight John Grisham and Patty Cornhole books on tape all of which are in horrible condition, are 61 days late and some of which are missing tapes. The cardboard cases look as though she sat on them repeatedly. She fesses up to one of the tapes being missing, but I detect others. Her husband—who looks exactly like you'd imagine Hagrid's younger brother might—unleashes two very loud open-mouthed sneezes with barely an "excuse me."

2:55-- Parka returns for his second appearance. He's evidently waiting for a specific e-mail.

3:00-- Like a big ol' coward who is only scheduled to work til 3p, Mrs. J flees the building leaving me by myself for the rest of the day.

3:25-- Blogger EATS this entry and I have to reconstruct it from the ground up. Thanks guys.

3:27-- Shortly after discovering this, the circ desk becomes awash in patrons. A lady is irritated that she can't seem to log on from home into the practice test service we offer on our website. The community college library has told her she needs to come to us for the password. I explain that we don't have a password for it. The old testing system used to use the patron's library card number for it, but I don't think that's how it works anymore. She claims she's tried that, but can't actually demonstrate for me how poorly this works for her because she has—all together now—forgotten her library card. She's fed up with the site and with me. Her attitude and the fact that blog entry was just eaten, is pissing me off. I tell her that Mrs. A and Mrs. C, the two people with definitive answers for her, are out until Monday.

"So, what, I'm out of luck until next week?" she says.

"Not if I can figure it out for you now," I say.

She starts ranting at me again. While she's busy with that, I load the practice test site on the circ computer and see that it clearly does NOT require a library card to access, but simply and clearly asks the patron to choose a username and password of their own. Once I've told her this, she suddenly remembers what her username and password are, logs into the system and is now in love with me that I've solved her problem.

3:37-- Someone phones for Mrs. A. Turns out the caller was already fully aware that Mrs. A is out of town at the library conference, she just thought she'd call anyway. In fact, the phones will NOT. STOP. RINGING. I can't even hang it up from the two calls I've just taken back to back without another coming in.

4:15-- Dadgum, I wish I had a big stool to sit on. Stupid Skechers!

4:34-- Our first call of the day asking what time we close. Whoo hooo, take a drink!

5:05-- And the world comes to the library. For 20 minutes straight, we're slammed. And when does the circ computer decide that it's going to take a break and completely freeze up? Oh, only when there's suddenly a line four patrons deep, two of whom want new library cards. I beat the computer into submission.

5:30-- Man my legs are hurting. Okay. Fine. I'll sit down.

5:48-- I call a patron about a book she has on hold. Unfortunately, she had just been in half an hour earlier so I should have given it to her then. I hate it when I do that.

6:03-- By pure chance, I spy Chester the (Potential) Molester parking in our half-hour parking and then lurking into the darkness toward the community college. From what we're told by the college's librarian, Mr. Rob, Chester's been racking up quite the reputation around there too. The only good thing about that is that at least the girls there are of consenting age.

6:32-- Half an hour to go. We've had very little traffic at all for the past thirty minutes. I think I'll vacuum.

6:51-- Already finished my end of the day duties. One last patron (who I like) is left to go. My 10 hour shift is nearly over. I plan to go home, eat whatever delicious meal my wife has prepared, and completely skip church choir practice. (The choir director is just gonna make me stand up.)

Shite! I hear a car!

Ahhh... False alarm.

6:59-- That's a wrap. Wow... a whole day with both Mrs. A and Mrs. C gone and no call from Mr. Kreskin. I would have had money riding on that one if there was anyone around to bet with.

7:00 p.m.-- I don my coat and exit stage right. (After craftily deleting my saved reconstruction file and browser history, of course.)

The Book Sale (a.k.a. Make the Bad Books Go Away, Mommy! Make them Go Away!)

Today's book sale went much better than might be expected. In fact, it was very little trouble at all, apart from the whole matter of having to haul around all those boxes of books. I'd guess we had around 350 boxes worth of books to unload from the U-Haul onto the long portable tables we'd spread out on the community college lawn. They were arranged into rows of Fiction Hardback, Fiction Paperback, Children's and General Non-Fiction of both the paper and hard back varieties. We started doing this at 7 in the morning and were finished with the unpacking and setting up by 8:30 or so, just in time for the early bird crowd.

The early birds were the major headache we were anticipating, but they weren't nearly as annoying this year. We only had to tell them four times that we were not yet open and they therefore were not allowed to begin bum rushing the tables. Naturally, they weren't too happy about this.

"We can't even look at the books?" one lady asked.

"No, ma'am. We have to be fair to all the customers," I told her. It's no good letting them shop early, even if they aren't physically taking the books from the tables. They're still marking them in their minds for future removal, getting a head start on everyone else. Granted, this is nothing I wasn't doing as I unpacked the books, but I work there and am doing all the heavy lifting so I figure I can mentally earmark a few books.

After being warned off, most of the early birders slunk away to what they hoped we would consider a safe non-shopping distance (i.e. only four feet from the tables). There they continued to scan the books, studiously not shopping yet still moving along the table rows at a very methodical pace. Their de facto leader in all this was Mr. Smiley, second grumpiest old man in the world. He stepped in three feet from the tables as he very conspicuously scanned them, daring us to tell him otherwise. Whatever. We let him go, cause there's just no pleasing him with the book sale anyway. He firmly believes, and has in the past loudly stated to all within earshot, that Mrs. A hoards all the good books for herself. This isn't true, but even if it was true she would only be hoarding them for the library's collection, which is why the bloody things were donated to us in the first place.  He's also complained in the past that Mrs. A's dog was making too much noise, presumably disturbing his illicit early bird shopping.

The reason we are watchful of the early bird crowd is because last year a group of them gave us lots of trouble. The group in question was a family of used book dealers from another state who flock to weekend book sales to help restock their storehouse. They had arrived well before 7 a.m. last year spent the two hours before we opened the sale trying every trick they knew to get a look at the books early. Now, I can understand their need to seek cheap stock, but they're going to have to abide by the rules if they're going to do it at our book sale. We had to tell them to stay away from the tables several times and practically needed a whip to enforce the policy. Then, as soon as we opened, they descended on the books like ravenous birds of prey. They would swoop in and scoop up whole sections, which they carted back to their little nest of operations, where they could sort through them away from the prying eyes of other shoppers. They picked out what they wanted and returned only the detritus. When we caught on to their scheme, Mrs. A told them to cut it out immediately and do their shopping at the tables themselves. They continued to swoop in and take books, but not in the same quantities as before. They managed to amass several teetering piles of books that they still had not paid for by 2:45 in the afternoon. That's when we realized what their real game was.

See at our sale we charge $3 for hardbacks and $2 for paperbacks until 3 p.m., at which time we shut things down for half an hour to arrange the tables and shift books before reopening and charging only $3 per bag of books. These early-bird dickweeds had been planning to hold all their piles of books until after 3:30 and then buy them at $3 per bag. After all, why pay $3 for a hardback book when you could get a whole bag of them for the same price? They could have escaped with their entire hoard for under $25.

Once we realized this, Mrs. A told them that they weren't allowed to do that and that they had to either purchase the books they had gathered before 3 p.m. or put them all back on the tables and take their chances that they would still be there when we reopened at 3:30. The family figured it was a safe enough bet, so just before we shut down at 3, they put all the books back on specific tables where they could find them again quickly at 3:30. This was a mistake on their part, but their REAL mistake was in leaving the area for the half hour we were in siesta. We'd been watching them as they put their books back and so, as soon as they went to get some coffee, we dashed right to their "secret" tables, took all their desired books and seeded them throughout all the other tables. And some of the more noticeably valuable books we took and hid in the U-Haul, just for spite. They were not happy campers when they returned to their "secret" tables and found their chosen books missing. I'm sure they relocated quite a few of them, but they had to work for it. Then, as soon as they checked out, we put the hidden books back out for mass consumption at $3 a bag.

I know, we're bastards, but at least we're only bastards to bastards.

This very family of book dealers did come to the sale this year, but they behaved themselves. They sent their daughter in to case the joint before 3. She bought a few books at regular price. Then, after 3:30, the whole family came back and bought 8 bulging bags of books. They played fair, we played fair.


Other than the minor trouble the early birders gave us, the rest of the book sale went pretty smoothly and was a rousing success.

I found that my book radar was pretty strong throughout the day. At my request Mrs. C recently ordered a favorite childhood series, the Tripods Trilogy, by John Christopher, for the library's juvenile collection. Trouble is, the book supplier didn't have a copy of The White Mountains, the first book in the series, so they sent books 2, 3 and the prequel book (of which I was previously unaware). Just as the sale started, I happened to walk by the children's section and got a ping on my book radar. There, nestled among some juvenile paperbacks was a pristine copy of The White Mountains. In fact, it was the only one of the series to be found there. Providence.

Another ping came when I was doing some shopping on my own. I'd gone into the sale wanting to pick up some of Orson Scott Card's Ender's Shadow series and found the first book right away, pinging at me from the paperback fiction.

I used my ping to help find books for several customers. It's kind of like playing a big game of Memory, finding the books we've seen earlier like shape cards turned face down.

Other books I picked up included Stephen King's Dreamcatcher, which I wanted to read just to see if it is as bad in print as it was as a movie. I found a few of Brad Meltzers novels. He's been doing a damn fine job writing comics these days, so I wanted to see how his novels were. (Check out his run on Green Arrow from a couple years ago, available in trade paperback, as well as his current gig as the writer of the Identity Crisis limited series from DC. Good stuff.) And speaking of comics, I managed to find the trade paperback of Dean Motter's The Prisoner mini-series from the late 1980s as well as a Marvel Masterpiece collection of The Essential Dr. Strange. I don't even like Dr. Strange, but it was in great shape so I picked it up. The only other comic to be found was the Batman Forever movie adaptation, which I have no use for on several different levels, so I didn't buy it.

By 5 p.m., we'd sold eight tables worth of books out of probably 16 or 17 tables total and we sold another table's worth by closing time at 6 p.m. We let late stragglers come and have their pick of the leftovers as we packed them all back up in boxes to haul away. We didn't have nearly as many leftover books this year as we have in the past, but they still amounted to around 130 boxes worth in the end.

Now those of you who had near cardiac infarctions when I last spoke of us chucking all the leftover books into the garbage truck, take your nitro and calm down. This year we did things a little differently.

Sure, I've been trying to convince Mrs. A that we'd sell a lot more books if we'd just back a garbage truck up to the book sale around 4:30, with the usual accompanying BEEP BEEP BEEP sound. If customers really knew that the garbage was the actual fate of the books, I'm betting they'd buy quite a few more $3 bags worth and we'd have that many less to throw out. However, Mrs. A fears the uproar this would cause so she looked into other avenues.

Turns out, a lady who lives in the closest bigger city to us wanted to attend the book sale but was unable to make it on the day it was held. She wrote to Mrs. A and requested a private session to go through the books herself. Mrs. A refused this on the grounds that it was even more blatant an early bird move than most of the early birders attempt. The lady then said that she would like to be able to go through the leftover books. Again, Mrs. A refused as what the lady was requesting meant a tremendous amount of unnecessary work for us. In that scenario, we the staff would have to pack up all the books from the sale, haul them back to our storage location instead of to the garbage truck, unload them, wait a couple of days for the lady to drive over, then we'd have to go back, unpack them all, let her go through them, pack up what she didn't want and load all those boxes on the truck to haul to the garbage and unload again. Work work work. Mrs. A told the lady that if she wanted any books, she had to take them ALL off our hands as well as do all the loading work herself (or bring her own help to do it). We absolutely were not going to haul any more boxes of books until next year. Surprisingly, the lady went for it and offered to pay us $1 per box. At 130 boxes, that nets us another $130 bucks to add to the $3890 we made in the sale itself, pushing us over $4000 total. Plus, it's no more work for us and we don't have to throw any books away. Sweet.

May all future book sales go so smoothly.

D-MINUS: 5

Sayonara, Bear Piss San

Today's Sunday shift went pretty well over all, but it sure didn't seem like it when I started out.

I nearly broke my and my car's ass trying to get to work on time. After church I barely had time to dash home, snatch up a plate of cabbage and boudain and hit the road.

(By the way, for those not in the know, boudain--pronounced boodan--is an exquisite New Orleans delicacy involving spiced pork, beef, chicken, liver and rice ground into a dressing and stuffed in a sausage skin. Done right, it can be as heavenly in a savory way as cinnamon rolls are in a sweet way. Most of the country, and indeed the world, is ignorant of this stuffed wonder. You can't buy it anywhere within at least eight states of here, so we had to import ours from friends passing through New Orleans. It's been sitting in our freezer for just over a year now, so we decided that since the wife and I are taking a minor break from our usual low-carb habits--due to her being stressed out at having to take the second round of board exams this week--we'd cook those suckers up today.)

So here I go, racing from home to make my usual 15 minute journey in 10 minutes. Never mind that the Fair is still going strong and traffic is nutty. I realize as I'm driving, though, that even if I'm a couple minutes late to work, the only person who will be inconvenienced is Mr. B-Natural, who's almost always waiting for us to open. Sure enough, he was the only one there when I drove up, a full two minutes before 1. By the time I actually opened the doors, Mr. B-Natural had been joined by Mr. Smiley, concentrating the world's population of grumpiest old men on our front step.

Mrs. H, who worked Saturday, had quite a busy day according to the circulation stats. She didn't even have time to finish the ILL's, so that was on my agenda. Eating my lunch was also on my agenda... that is, until Bear Piss Man wafted in for a computer. I didn't have a computer free for him, though, so he just stood around stinking up the front room until I did. Bear Piss Man still smelled like bear piss, but he had obviously tried to cover it by spraying himself down with some sort of air-freshener. It did not help whatsoever. He smelled exactly like a urinal cake.

"Been to the fair yet?" he asked, still trying to ply his free entrance to the freak-show favor. "Oh yeah, you went for the cinnamon rolls the other day," he said, remembering that I'd told him that. "Better go today, cause it's your last chance til next year."

I didn't reply. I finally put him on a computer and he proceeded to stink up the computer hall for the better part of two hours. When he left, he said, "Well, if I don't see you before next year, it's been a real pleasure." Then he reached out and shook my hand. And his hand was every bit as clammy as you'd expect it to be. As soon as he'd left, I booked it to the sink to wash my hand, trying not to breathe too heavily least I smell something on it.

I was unable to eat my beloved boudain until the place had been given quite a while to air out.

D-MINUS: 12

Mr. B-Natural's Coffee "Brakes"

As I've mentioned before, our patron Mr. B-Natural, the grumpiest old man in all the world, has actually been considerably less grumpy lately. He's damn near close to losing his title to Mr. Smiley, or maybe even a dark horse candidate as yet to be determined. He's barely tried to irritate the hell out of anyone in months, and for a guy whose whole reason for living has been to irritate the hell out of people that's saying something. Sure, he still comes in and signs his name upside down on the computer sign-in sheet in the mistaken belief that this irritates us, but these days it's mostly out of habit than actual malice. Since he acquired his dog, Bubba--a fantastically well-behaved and sweet animal who we genuinely love getting visits from--Mr. B-Natural has mellowed out quite a bit.

Well.... mostly. Today, one of his remaining genuinely irritating habits came back to bite him in the ass.

Mr. B-Natural is fond of crossword puzzles. Mr. B-Natural is also fond of coffee. Mr. B-Natural is fond of doing his crossword puzzles while drinking his coffee. Trouble is, he does his crossword puzzles on our internet access computers and we don't allow coffee, or any beverage for that matter, in proximity to the computers, nor even beyond the front room of the library. At all. This matters not to Mr. B-Natural. In fact, he likes it that way, cause if he can sneak his coffee in and actually manage to get it back to the computers without being caught, he's pulled one over on us and has thus, in his mind, won the day. If we catch him with it, though, we're naturally irritated that he has tried to sneak coffee past us despite the hundreds of times we've told him not to. His seed of irritation thusly sewn, he has again won the day. It's been a while, though, since any of us have caught him trying it.

Today Mr. B-Natural came in with Bubba and went up to the desk to sign in upside down. I didn't notice any real sneaky behavior out of him until I came around the desk to go log on a computer for him, at which point Mr. B leaned over and picked something up from the step stool by the desk, then quickly tried to turn his back to me with the mystery object in front of him. (I was too obtuse to even notice this either, but received the full report later from Mrs. J who had a better view from her position in front of the desk.) When Mr. B-Natural turned, though, he got tangled in Bubba's leash, started to lose his balance, and in order to remain upright he had to jettison the mystery object... *GASP* a brimming full travel mug of coffee!!

There are a lot of truly shitty travel mugs on the market these days. I know `cause I own quite a few. So did Mr. B-Natural. His shitty, ostensibly spill-proof mug hit ground, burst open with no argument and sprayed its contents over a wide section of our floor.

"Oopsie," I said, coming up behind him, grinning like a madman at his failed treachery.

On my way to get the mop bucket Mrs. A came downstairs and saw me snickering.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Just go up front and see."

Mrs. A dashed up front where she got to see Mr. B-Natural in his sheepish, weakened and most definitely guilty condition. There was no hiding this. Now not only was he caught, he didn't even have any coffee to drink later.

We then had to comfort and pet poor Bubba, who somehow thought he was at fault for the spill and had sat down to sulk.

So let's tally this up: No smuggled coffee for Mr. B-Natural and he was certainly far more irritated about the whole matter than we were. Yeah, I'd say the day's win was ours.

"Sadderdee"

I have something of a love/hate relationship with working Saturdays at the "liberry."

On the one hand, it's usually fairly quiet and peaceful, as opposed to most week days. On the other hand, I gotta get up early on a Saturday and come in. Plus I have to deal with mailing out all the interlibrary loan returns that have accumulated throughout the week. It's not the least complicated process and it's one I don't usually have to fuss with. Miss E, our weekend "Liberry" Ass. is usually responsible for doing it, but I'm subbing for her today since she was nice enough to sub for me during the play. Trouble is, I work Saturdays so infrequently that I have just enough time to forget how to do the ILLs before I have to come back to do them again.

But we have had a parade of colorful patrons today.

Mr. B-Natural popped in for his daily visit to his favorite computer crossword puzzle website. For a guy who's the grumpiest man in all the world, he's usually far less grumpy on Saturdays and has even been known to help us carry books in from the book return box of his own volition. Not today, when I'm working, mind you, but Miss E says he helps her all the time.

Matilde the Cranky Wiccan followed shortly thereafter. I've not spoken of Matilde before, cause there's really not much to speak of. She drives around in a beat up old car with lots of pro-pagan bumper stickers, like "Goddess Bless America" and "Wiccans Rule!" She's not a Liberry Rogue, per se, as she rarely does anything rogueish outside of occasionally being cranky. See, Matilde's one of the full-fledged members of the Liberry Internet Crowd, a loose and varied group of people who only come to the library for our internet access and may or may not even have cards with us. As such they tend to be very cranky about anything that interferes with them getting their Internet Fix. They get cranky when the computers are all full and they can't use one immediately. They get cranky if they have to wait ANY length of time for one to open up. They get cranky when the internet isn't working properly, as has been the case for over a week now. They get cranky when their time runs out and you tell them they have to get off the computers and let someone else have a turn. Mr. B-Natural is, of course, their king. We've not really had a queen before, but Matilde the Cranky Wiccan might fit the bill, not only for her computer useage but for her relationship to Mr. B-Natural as well. See, they actually LIKE one another. In fact, just about the only time either of them have been observed to display traits of happiness and good will is when they're in one another's presence. Scarier than that is the way they greet one another. Matilde walks in, see's Mr. B-Natural and issues forth a gutteral, sultryish, "Hey, baby" or "Hey, Sexy" to which Mr. B-Natural smiles and appears friendly. This is disturbing on so many levels.

Mr. Smiley, the second grumpiest man in all the world, also popped in for a visit. He wasn't particularly grumpy today either, but didn't seem too happy that none of his many interlibrary loans had come in. I was thankful that he brought one of his old ones back, just in time for me to pack it up and send off. I was laying money that I'd get all the ILL stuff packed up and then nine people would walk in with more, but it didn't go down like that.

And, finally, we had a visit from Cap'n Crossdresser, who was decked out in a knee-length little black skirt with matching pumps and a darkish coat that I'm sorry to report I didn't get a good look at. Not sure why he's on the Rogue list, come to think of it. He's actually one of the nicer patrons we have and has never given us any trouble. He just likes to dress up in women's clothing. No crime there.

Benign Legion of Liberry Rogues

Friday was a really boring day at the "Liberry." During the course of the day, we were actually visited by nearly the entire membership of the current Liberry Rogues Gallery, including Ron the (Magazine) Ripper, Chester the (Potential) Molester and both Mr B-Natural (the Grumpiest Old Man in all the World) and Mr. Smiley (the Second Grumpiest Old Man in All The World). Unfortunately, there was narry an incident of misbehavior or even anything interesting out of any of them to report.

In fact, the closest thing to an incident we had was when Mr. B-Natural told me that his puppy, Bubba, had recently given him the gift of a slightly soggy, though still edible, Milkbone dog biscuit and insisted that he take it no matter how many times he threw it away. Mr. B-Natural carried it with him in his pocket, just to show to people. This might strike you as a strange thing to do, but I personally think it's very cute. Plus, it's actually a big step in Mr. B's evolution toward becoming Not Quite the Grumpiest Man in All The World. The dog has mellowed Mr. B-Natural quite a bit, and anything that can accomplish that is a good thing in my book.

Mr. Smiley is still the Second Grumpiest Man in All The World, but he seems to like me so he doesn't give me any crap. This is probably due to my never having had cause to give him any. As far as I can tell, Mr. Smiley has some anger-managment issues. Unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, most of his glory days of raising hell at having his Wallstreet Journal reading time disturbed by even the slightest sound seem to be over. And it's been nearly a year since he caused an elderly lady to fall half-way down the stairs due entirely to his own deep-seated rudeness. No, these days Mr. Smiley seems to be taking an active interest in not being so grumpy. He even tries to be nice, on occasion. It's such an alien behavior for him that he just can't get the hang of it and it always comes off as just wrong and creepy.

I covered Ron the Ripper earlier in this blog's archives, (though I still haven't revealed his secret identity).

And Chester the (potential) Molester? That sick bastard is a whole other post entirely...