Dear Wandering Musician...

Okay, so when you were in two days back and asked if we had the capability to burn CDs with our public access computers, I did indeed tell you "Yes."

And when you asked if we could copy one CD's worth of your self-produced music onto another CD, I also said, "Yes."

I am also the guy who then explained to you that because each computer only has one CD drive, the easiest way for you to replicate your self-produced recording of your work was to save the song files onto what I described as "our temporary patron drive," and then burn those files onto a blank CD using the same single drive.

Please do note, however, that at no point during our conversation did I advise you to go out and give away BOTH the copy and your original CD to random strangers on the street for whom you have no contact information.

I would now like to further note that this is precisely what you did, a fact which you yourself have just explained to me after returning to our library, days later, having assumed incorrectly that your music would still be found within the confines of our "temporary patron drive." Unfortunately for you, the word "temporary" in "temporary patron drive" is there for a reason and was chosen as a descriptor due to the fact that our "temporary patron drive" is automatically wiped clean each time our computers are rebooted.

While I'm very sorry that you don't have any more copies of your music, it is hardly my fault that you're a dumbass who somehow expected that a public computer could be used as your own personal digital recording studio.

I hope that wasn't the master you gave away.

Keep on playin'.

--juice

Dear Patron Mom...

So let me get this straight...

You just brought back a book that your kids checked out which is 55 days overdue. And you've now explained to me that the reason it was 55 days overdue is because the last time you returned books for your kids, eight weeks ago, you thought you'd brought all of the books back because you had counted them and saw that there were five of them, which was the number of books you knew your kids had checked out. However, as you've now also indicated, the reason there were five books in the stack, yet NOT the overdue book you've just returned, is because one of those five books actually belonged to one of your kids and not to the library. And now you've explained to me that your kids would really, really like to have that book of theirs back.

This I can understand and, indeed, sympathize with.

Unfortunately, you've also now explained that neither you nor your kids have ANY IDEA WHATSOEVER as to the identity of the book you mistakenly returned. You don't know the title, the author, nor even what it looked like. Compounding the embarrassing nature of this mistake is your now stated assumption that we've somehow been holding this mystery book for you here at the circ desk for the past EIGHT WEEKS. That we might have, as is our policy, assumed the book to have been a donation and put it into storage for our book sale or even added it to our collection is not a possibility that you have entertained.

I am even further astounded at your additional suggestion that we should now allow you to go downstairs to the storage room and have a look around for your beloved mystery tome. A nice idea in theory, but not very practical. For you see there are literally thousands of books in our storage area, most of which are not even divided into any sort of classification, some of which are not even in boxes but instead are kept in precariously teetering piles. And now that I have explained that to you I have been afforded the small pleasure of seeing your face fall as you realize the full extent of your folly. Because as much as you might want your mystery book back, the amount of work it would take to actually locate it, assuming it's even downstairs at all, has considerably lessened the intensity of your need for its return. Wisely, you have chosen to drop the matter entirely, at least until our mid-summer book sale, when you'll perhaps have a fighting chance of locating it again, provided you come early enough.

Oh, and by the way, that'll be $2.75 for the fine, please.

Yours in sweetness and light

--juice

Dear Future DUI Arrestee Patron...

...please do not think for even a moment that I did not see you go out to your vehicle, rummage around in your back seat floor and emerge with five or six empty beer cans which you then attempted to cram into our book return.

I don't know if you were being a douchebag intentionally or if you're merely illiterate and thus incapable of reading the giant BOOK RETURN sign on the front of the book return's door or if you were already too drunk to see it clearly. I personally suspect a combination of illiteracy and douchebaggery may be in evidence, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the whole public-drunkenness thing as I did not detect fumes about your person earlier nor did you seem at all drunk.

Whatever the case, your little depository plan did not work so well due to the fact that we keep our book return locked during the day. As I noted, you seemed a mite confused on this point, until you glanced around and finally noticed the conveniently located trash receptacle nearby. Thank you for then managing to get all of your cans in ours.

Please gnaw on a loin.

--juice

Dear Fatty Manchild...

... I realize that you are far too busy surfing the internet to be bothered to answer your cell phone. On most occasions, I might even respect this. However, whoever is phoning you clearly wishes to speak with you in a most desperate manner, for they have been phoning and rephoning you once per minute for the past eight minutes, allowing each ring cycle to ring its fullest. And while we currently have no anti-cell phone policies preventing you from allowing your phone to ring ad infinitum, I must take issue with your decision to do so, as opposed to simply turning it off or declining the calls. I say this, because your decision to allow your phone to ring so frequently has meant that the rest of us have been subjected to repeated performances of your ringtone choice of Kid Rock's "Bawitdaba" at your phone's top volume.

One very practical and satisfying method for muffling that noise comes immediately to my mind, sir. Pray I don't entertain it further.

Yours with malice,

--juice

Dear Community College Student in Your Mid 40's...

...you clueless, clueless thing, you. 

Okay, so I genuinely feel sorry that you spent over an hour typing up a paper only to have our patron computer crash on you because it didn't like the cheap-ass Wal-Mart jump drive you inserted into it at the very end of the typing process. (A cheap-ass Wal-Mart jump drive which, I might add, also crashed every other computer in the building that we used to test it further.) That was unfortunate and could not have been predicted. Fortunately for you, but disturbingly for us, the computer crash coincided with our computers collectively deciding that they all no longer wished to participate in the use of our usual patron-information-protection software, which is supposed to return each system to a blank slate and wipe out anything patrons foolishly saved to the hard drive each time the computer is logged off. Now we have to deal with people angry that their Hotmail logins come pre-filled-in for their convenience and having their complete Netflix queues available to be viewed by one and all. Happily, though, this meant that your paper was there waiting for you when we logged your computer back on for you, despite my assurances to you that it would not be. Having warned you against the use of cheap-ass Wal-Mart jump drives in our computers, we then sold you a 3.5 diskette on which you could save your paper. We even held your little hand and showed you step by step how to save your paper to it. You claimed you already knew how and did not ask for further help at the time you eventually saved it. Why, therefore, have you now returned, days later, and asked me why your paper is no longer on your disk? I have no way of saying for sure why your paper is not there. If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say you didn't save it to your disk in the first place or somehow managed to delete it afterward. However, I won't suggest that, but will instead politely give you the benefit of the doubt that it was the fault of cosmic rays, big scary monsters, or, as you have now implied, that our disk was bad and ate your file. Stranger things have happened. Oh, sure, the test file we saved onto your disk while showing you how to save stuff is still there, but I'm sure it's our disk's fault—and, therefore, our fault—that your paper is no more. 

Now, please listen very closely, for I'm only going to say this for the third time... IF YOU NEED HELP SAVING YOUR FILE TO YOUR DISK AND STILL DON'T ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO DO IT, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, COME GET A STAFF MEMBER TO SHOW YOU HOW. Failure to do so will result in having your disk painfully inserted into your A:Drive, if you know what I mean. 

Every-so-Joyfully Yours, 

--juice

Dear Mr. Perfect...

...I realize that you are in deep, abiding and passionate love with the word processing program W0rd Perfect.

I realize that you adore this program to a degree bordering on and possibly crossing into a religious fervor.

I realize that you miss W0rd Perfect dearly, having gone so long without seeing it on the majority of our patron computers.

I realize that you feel all other word processors are lesser programs that have only come to wide use due to a conspiracy instigated by Micr0soft in which they prefer to bundle their own suite of programs with their own operating system and do their best to block all other programs from being used, even if and possibly because, as you believe, those other programs are superior in all respects to the dreaded 0ffice suite.

I realize that while your great love of W0rd Perfect is currently chaste and chivalrous in nature, I suspect you would indeed make sweet sweet love to it if only we had the technology.

I realize these things. You do not have to explain them to me... YET. AGAIN.

I now need for you to realize that while we do still have one remaining patron computer that contains W0rd Perfect, it is currently in use by Matilde the Cranky Wiccan and I will not bust her off of it merely to allow you to suckle at your lusty, Corel-spawned teat.

No.

Please also realize that while I have spoken on your behalf to my superiors and have asked if there was any chance we could see our way fit to purchase and install W0rd Perfect on all our computers, I did so not out of any service-oriented nature but merely in the hope that if we granted your wish you might finally shut the f*ck up about it. I have since been informed by my superiors that this "ain't gonna happen," which I believe I have explained to you on one previous occasion already. Purchasing said program for each of the patron computers would be costly and redundant as those computers already contain a word-processing program that is, to our way of thinking, far superior to your particular choice of unrequited visual affection, which, incidentally, blows more goats than Halle Berry's Catwoman.

Also, note that I in no way believe that granting your wish would actually accomplish our ultimate goal of getting you to shut the aforementioned f*ck up. In fact, I am fairly certain that doing so would only lead to lengthy sessions of proselytizing to the staff, and any other patrons unfortunate enough to stray too close, as to the wonderfulness of your electronic dream-bride and how unworthy Micr0soft W0rd is of sharing four of the same letters in her name.

Please also realize that I have exhausted the avenues available to me to do anything to help you and am leaving the responsibility for bothering my superiors on this particular issue entirely in your hands from this point forward. In other words, I would appreciate it if you would leave me the hell alone about it.

You should do this, if not for my sake, then for your own...

...for there is one last thing I wish you were capable of realizing, but that I know you are not...

...you, sir, have no idea the mental gymnastics I have to go through in order to keep my limbs within my control and prevent them from setting you aflame every time you bring up your favorite topic. I do not know how much longer I can stave off the commands of the voices whispering in my head. If you must return to bother me some more, please, for your own protection, do so only while wearing fire-retardant clothing. Some kevlar couldn't hurt either.

Your greatest fan for ever and ever (but only if you go away for ever and ever),

--juice

Dear Job-Seeking Patron...

...when you were in last week, using our computer to compose your resume, you seemed to comprehend what I was saying when I explained to you that you could temporarily save that resume to the desktop of our computer in order to print it and be able to then email it to yourself as an attachment afterward. You also seemed to understand when I then assured you that your resume file would indeed vanish forever and ever, into the ether, never to be seen again, when we next logged off that computer. And after you declined to buy a diskette from us, you also clearly seemed to understand me when I stressed to you the importance of emailing that resume to yourself as an attachment should you wish to save it for future use. You even indicated that you knew how to do so.

Why, therefore, do you now expect it to still be there and why have you asked me to my face if I "had been kidding" when I told you that it wouldn't last week?

Allow me to suggest that you refrain from mentioning this little incident during any job interviews your resume effort might net you.

Allow me to also suggest how fortunate you are to have come through your most recent visit to the "liberry" with your ass unkicked.

Your super best friend forever,

--da juicemeister

Dear Caffiene Addict Patron...

...I know from past experience with you that you are well-aware that you cannot drink your cup of locally-brewed coffee while using our patron computers. Why then did you purchase it, bring it into the library and sign up for a computer anyway, knowing that we would make you leave it at the desk? This maneuver on your part has assured that your coffee will be very cold by the time you've finished checking your email for half an hour. Is it really THAT much trouble to drink your coffee first and then come in to compute? After all, it's a gorgeous day. The sun is shining. Little squirrels are scampering. We have a picnic table.

Yours most sincerely and without malice,

--juice

Dear Fatty Manchild... (or "AHHHH!!! MY EYES!! MY BEAUTIFUL, PRECIOUS EYES!!! WHY, DEAR GOD, WHY?!!! WHY, WHY, WHY?!!!: 2007")

... our patron who we believe went into a coma as a small boy in the mid 1980s only to emerge with a wicked case of arrested fashion sense more recently.

While I've seen you make some remarkably dumb clothing choices in the past, yesterday your outfit bordered on the states of both inappropriate and irresponsible.

Let me paint you a picture of what I saw you wearing. You came in, of your own free will, clad in a sleeveless muscle shirt, the kind with the big, open, split sides that were all "da bomb" in the `80s, slit nearly to the lower edge of the shirt fabric itself. I presume this was to allow your no doubt glistening "muscles" to be viewed by one and all as well as provide much-needed ventillation for them. Oh, but you didn't stop there. Paired with this top, Mr. F. Manchild, you had somehow squeezed yourself into a pair of black lycra bicycle shorts, the spandex of which looked to be straining at the very limits of tensile stress. I must confess that I averted my eyes at this point, lest the form-fitting nature of your bicycle shorts reveal any forms that might have caused my eyes to seek out the brisk and loving embrace of oven-cleaner.

Now, sir, in case you're offended at my remarks and believe I am somehow ridiculing you for being a tad obese, if you will but tear your gaze away from your computer screen and have a gander at me, I believe you will note that I am something of a fat guy myself (or am at least pleasantly chubby). And please take further note that while it is blisteringly hot out of doors, I am clad in trousers and a shirt that does not expose an unnecessary amount of my torso. And while I will admit to having worn worse clothing than yours whilst lounging around my home, (where it is indeed hotter than an ass-brownie fresh from the oven), I think it should also be noted that I always keep such attire within the confines of my home and don't venture out to inflict it on the public at large.

Please have the courtesy to do the same during future visits with us.

Your swell pal,

--juice

Dear Patrick McGoohan...

... star, head-writer and executive producer of The Prisoner.

That was your ending?

Must have been some really good weed, dude.

For years I've read how great your program was and I knew how much fanboy attention had been focused on it. What I couldn't understand was how the secret of the show's ending hadn't been spoiled for me. It seemed like any secret that big would have long since become part of the nerd collective unconscious and would have filtered down to me at some point. However, it had not. I even read the unofficial The Prisoner comic book sequel by Dead Motter, before watching even one episode, and still had no idea how the original series ended.

I thought, Could it be that the international sonofabitch community is, for once, actually being cool and not attempting to spoil the ending for everyone? Or does everyone simply assume that the ending was spoiled nearly 40 years ago, so why bother?

Then I watched the final episode and realized that the real reason no one bothered to spoil it is that people have to be able to understand it first before they can explain it enough to spoil.

Okay, sure, there was some lovely subtext... I think. But what the hell, man? I understand the need to keep things a little vague and mysterious, but give me something I can at least work with. Throw me a crumb! Not monkey-masks, beard-shaving, rockets to nowhere, allegiance-shifting midgets and a song and dance number on the back of a moving flatbed. I guess I can at least respect the left-field approach to wrapping up a series with so many secrets, but dammit, David Lynch only wishes he was as weird as all that.

Bewildered, semi-unsatisfied and more than a little annoyed,

--juice

Dear BBC America...

... you kipper-eating, Beckhamless, Thames-floating links of doody.

Thank you ever-so-kindly for rerunning the episodes of The Prisoner a few months back, allowing me the opportunity to have my DVR record them all so I could watch them at my leisure over the course of several weeks. It's a show that, for decades, I've heard described as one of the all-time greatest science-fiction programs in the history of television and is one I have never had the chance to watch until you began rerunning it. For that, I genuinely thank you.

However, allow me to complain that in your haste to rebroadcast The Prisoner, you seem to have gotten a bit mixed up as to the actual broadcast order of those episodes in two unfortunate ways.

Firstly, you began with Episode 1 (good start), then jumped to Episodes 10 - 17 (not so great) before going back to broadcast Episodes 2 - 9. Again, a complete set in the end, but not exactly broadcast in order forcing me to have my DVR to record them all first, then watch each episode only after checking the episode numbers in each episode's description so that I could watch them in sequence.

Secondly and most tragically, the final two episodes of the series were mistakenly labeled as Episodes 8 and 9 rather than Episodes 16 and 17, as they should have been. Imagine my dismay at reaching what should have been the half-way point of the series only to find the series had ended right before my eyes (if you call THAT an ending).

To put it another way, I was robbed.

By you.

And you now owe me.

To make it up, I must insist that you broadcast the entirety of Torchwood (in its proper broadcast order), as well as The Sarah Jane Adventures, (also in its proper broadcast order). You might also throw in repeat broadcasts of classic Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes and any Rik Mayall comedies you might have on hand.

And if you really want to get back in my good graces, you may refrain from showing any more episodes of Are You Being Served? from now until the end of time.

And if you really REALLY want to get back in my good graces, you might also use the Tardis to go back in time and convince the actors who played Jeff in Coupling and the ones who played Archie and Duncan in Monarch of the Glen that it was a very bad idea to leave those series at the height of their popularity and that the shows just wouldn't be the same (or, in some cases, MAKE ANY F%$#!NG SENSE) without them and that they should really stay on to wrap things up. Give `em more money if they ask for it. They deserved it.

Oh, and more Red Dwarf, please.

That, I believe, should do nicely.

Yours forever and ever,

--juice

Dear Robert Palmer...

The strangest thing happened yesterday.

Mr. B-Natural came in, sans laptop, and signed up to use one of our normal patron computers. His face clean shaven. And his golf cap, seemingly identical to the hole-ridden one he's been sporting, was completely free of holes.

I don't know what this means, but it caused me to question whether or not I'd dreamed up the whole laptop / moustache / lost-a-fight-with-a-leaky-battery-hat thing he's had going for the past week.

Tell me, am I dreaming?

Dear David McPhail...

...you big, honking, prolific, Massachusetts-livin', fanny-deposit.

Why ya gotta write so many frickin' kids books, huh?

Sure, they're good and all, but they're a pain in my keister to have to alphabetize along with the rest of the Ms in our Easy Reader section.

Okay, so it's our fault that we kept that section pretty wild and chaotic for nigh unto two decades, allowing it to flourish unhindered by the toils of alphabetic classification except for the scantest trace of the first letter of the author's last name. And in that time it became a near-mystical land where patrons had little hope of locating specific books without a Sherpa, a bagpipe player and perhaps a tube of KY. Why exactly my boss got a wild hair up her hinder to bring order to this land, after all these years, I'm not entirely sure. In my view, the land became so wild and disorganized due entirely to the evil children who frequent it and their grabby, shovy, occasionally poop-encrusted little hands. In fact, while I was busy alphabetizing your particular acre of shelf-space, one such whelp came over, yanked out a book from a recently alphabetized section and immediately proceeded to cram it back in a random part of the shelf for no observable reason other than an inherent need to sew discord. I very nearly slapped her. It is furthermore my prediction that these same stinking crumb-crunchers will soon return the Easy Readers section to its previous anarchic state despite any and all efforts on our part to civilize the joint.

However, you, David McPhail, aren't helping matters! Out of the entire section of authors whose surnames begin with Mc-, yours was easily the most represented of any single author. You even beat out Robert McCloskey by a healthy margin. So while I appreciate the quality, care and attention to detail you bring to your work, you're doing too durn much of it and it's cheesing me off! Do you realize the hours of manpower it's going to take to keep your books in any kind of order? Dear God, man, just reading your shelf alone will be enough to drive a person mad! How can you live with yourself? You inhuman monster!

In your favor, though, at least the covers of your wonderful books don't include a goofy, little, Culkin-esque picture of yourself gawking out at readers from beneath one of the world's worst comb-overs. (Yeah, I'm talkin' about you Robert Munsch!)

Yours sincerely,

--da juicemeister

R.I.P. Super Freak

Dear Rick James...

...you bitch. Thanks ever so much kicking off dead a mere three weeks after I borrowed your name to use as a pseudonym for one of our problem patrons. Now I'm going to look like an asshole in poor taste for using your name when I only just learned of your passing today in Newsweek. And I'm going to feel all creepy and stuff when I keep using it in the future.

Love and kisses,

--Juice