Settling In (Moving Days G)

Meanwhile, back at our branch(es), we were hard at work boxing up and transporting the contents of the lower level of our building to the new place, not to mention some of our furniture, which was to serve as furniture in the new place until the comfier chairs and sofas we'd ordered months previously were to finally arrive. (It was around this time that former board member Mrs. Day began her unfortunate refinishing of the "liberry's" tables, ultimately resulting in Ms. D having to redo them all and then redo one of them yet again later.) 

Most of the actual moving was accomplished withing a couple of days and most of the unboxing and shelving was done in a couple more. And with books finally starting to be shelved, the prospect of actually working in such a cool new place began to seem more real. 

The new place truly was awesome. It sat high on a hill and offered great big windows,with possibly the best view of Town-A in the whole area. Not only that, but with the new place came far more space to operate in, offices for both Mrs. A and Mrs. C, a staff workroom with a desks and computers for both me and Mrs. B (that we technically had to share with Ms. M and Ms. S, but whatever) and actual counter space upon which we could accomplish such tasks as processing and covering books without having to be hunched over a tiny, rickety table. Mrs. A had even ordered task chairs for us, making sure that they were both backless and uncomfortable to sit on, precisely so that Ms. S wouldn't stay on her duff the whole time. And within that staff workroom was a private restroom for staff only! Oh, sure, we had a private restroom for staff only back in the old library, but it was in Mrs. A's office and was inconvenient to use when she was actually IN her office, plus patrons often used it, too, whenever she wasn't in there. Now we had our own "facilities" away from prying patron eyes and ears, complete with a column of lockers in which we could stash personal items. We were amazed. 

The new circ desk was also a thing of beauty, with plenty of storage cabinets and drawers to fill. We had so many, in fact, that I eventually declared one of them The Barcode Drawer, and stored in it one sheet of barcodes which I used for magazine processing. This eventually lead to conversations such as:  

ME-- Why are there totebags in the Barcode Drawer?  

MRS. B-- I dunno.  

ME-- No, you're supposed to say "The question is: Why are there barcodes in the Totebag Drawer?" (Long pause)  

MRS. B-- Oh. 

No, my fellow employees don't watch as much Scrubs as I do. Another major innovation was the installation of a new phone system so that when Mrs. A received phone calls we wouldn't have to walk all the way to her office to tell her; we could just transfer the call. And another phone line was also installed to allow us to take multiple calls from multiple phones. 

We also had a staff breakroom on the lower level complete with a full sized refrigerator, a microwave, a stove, a double sink, a dishwasher and loads and loads of cabinet space in which we could store... well, groceries, I guess. Sounds a lot like a kitchen, right? Nope. Not a kitchen. Not a kitchen at all. And, sure, while people who eventually were going to rent out our multi-purpose room, located there on the same level, could use it in similar ways AS a kitchen, it was most certainly NOT a kitchen. This was mostly because if we'd called it a kitchen the health department would be duty-bound to come round and inspect it once in a while. They didn't have to inspect staff breakrooms, though, so that's what it officially became on all plans and signage. 

Back upstairs, we had a far bigger children's book area, with sections for juvenile and easy readers. It practically took up an entire wing of the building. And we located the young adult section to the other side of the building, since many of the young adult patrons we'd had before looked down their noses at having to browse in the "children's" section. (They also got the comfiest furniture in the entire building, not that they appreciated it, the little turds. The Coot often camped out there to sleep his way through the afternoon.) 

With no one there but the staff, our workdays were pretty leisurely for a while. We'd roll in wearing shorts and flip flops and work on individual tasks with headphone and podcast accompaniment until lunch time. Then we'd go get food and cart it back to enjoy in front of the big window. (We figured it would be the only time we'd be able to eat with that kind of view, so we might as well enjoy it while we could.) And every few days would bring a delivery of some new furniture that we'd get to try out. Yep, those days were pretty sweet. 

As for the books, we had ample space available so that we didn't even have to use all the levels of any given set of shelves. We separated paperbacks and hardbacks, even trade sized paperbacks that had formerly been shelved with the hardbacks because they wouldn't fit on the old spin racks. Now the spin racks were a thing of the past. The trouble was, once we put stuff on the shelves, we quickly saw more efficient ways to shelve things, so we had to rearrange entire sections to suit the new plan. Mrs. C warned us early on that we'd probably be making adjustments for the first year, so we should get used to it early. She was indeed correct in her prediction. 

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Cootastic!

A patron came up to the circ-desk bearing what looked like a leather checkbook cover.

"Somebody left this in a chair over by the window," he said.

"Oh, thanks," I told him and took it to drop in the lost and found box. Before doing so, I opened it to find it was not only a checkbook cover but also a wallet, with a driver's license bearing a picture of The Coot staring out. I laughed at this. The Coot had been parked in one of the chairs by the window for most of the day, all slunk down in it as usual. He'd probably slunk his ass so far down in the seat that that he'd wiggled his wallet out of his back pocket.

I phoned the Coot's home and left a message explaining that we had his wallet at the desk.

The next morning, the Coot stopped by, grinned broadly and asked if I'd been the one to call him. I'd seen him coming up the walk and already had his wallet ready to hand to him. I should have demanded some behavior modification on his part before handing it over, but I didn't. Though I'm loathe to admit it, the Coot hasn't been especially annoying as of recent. Oh, sure, he still splashes water on the counter in the men's room in a most unnecessary manner, but he's taken to putting away his books and periodicals on most days instead of always leaving them in piles in his wake. And, gratefully, he no longer smells of cat piss. Or at least he's stopped wearing his leather jacket that smells like cat piss.

Good one.

"Liberry" Glossary: Coot Pile

Coot Pile
-noun

1. The assorted books on philosophy, poetry, biography and classic literature left in piles on one or more of our reading tables each day by our patron The Coot. (Granted, we hate it when patrons try to reshelve books themselves and encourage them to leave any books they pull from the shelves on our conveniently located shelving cart, so it's not like we expected the Coot to do the work for us. However, it is still very irritating to be on the brink of locking the door to go home only to discover a pile of seven books and magazines from wildly different places in the nonfiction stacks to have to shelve before you can leave. Wherever he is when he's finished reading, that's where the book stays.)

And now, we return to our regularly scheduled program.

So what have the "bad" patrons been up to since I took two weeks off from crapping on them quite so much?

Oh, the usual...

• We still have the usual urinal non-flushers to deal with, who in recent weeks have taken to leaving sloppy drippage on both the front lip of the urinal edge as well as the floor beneath. Now they've stepped up their game and are somehow managing to get urine on TOP of the urinal itself, where it congeals in the hard to clean trench made by the sealant. Son-of-a-bitch, you'd think we'd had a pack of dogs in here marking their territory! I've now been a bit more observant when I visit public restrooms in other buildings and I must say I don't notice near the amount of excess spillage in them that I see on a daily basis at the "liberry." Engage in Intercourse with a small water-fowl, I hate `em!


• In more excretory news, we seem to have a new Serial Shitter—a Copycat Shitter, if you will. We know it's not the original Serial Shitter for none of us have seen him in for months. However, just like his namesake, the Copycat Shitter has left his calling card splattered all over the interior sides of our men's toilet and made, from the evidence, only a cursory effort to flush. This Copycat Shitter may in fact be related to our next mystery rogue...


• Some asshat has been frequently rendering our men's restroom a gassy no-man's land through the sheer power of his fecal fumes. I know, I know, this has been a regular complaint here about a LOT of different patrons over the years, but this is one guy with, presumably, one ass and the ability to completely void the warranty of any given room. We don't know who it is yet, but he has to be a regular patron, since it is occurring quite regularly. The stench is horrifying and lingering and defies our efforts to dispel it. And while I've never been on a CSI-style forensic field trip to know first-hand, to me this guy's product smells exactly like a bog corpse. And due to some damn genius having hid all the aerosol freshener, I had to combat this horror with a tiny bottle of pump-spray air-freshener and a crucifix. For a bit, I thought the responsible party might be Sunday Bob, who did return on a recent Friday and caused all hope to be abandoned by anyone entering the restroom after his departure. However, he's not been in regularly enough to be the culprit and has fumes of a different... um... flavor, I guess. We have now bought numerous cans of aerosol air-freshener, each a different scent and different brand because we know from experience with the likes of Mr. Stanky that this level of stench will wear out a given scent in no time flat.


• The Coot has now taken to shaving in the men's room, which seems the next logical step in his campaign to make the "liberry" his home. This might have gone entirely unnoticed by the staff, except for the fact that, just as he leaves piles of books in his wake throughout the "liberry," he also leaves wads of shaving cream, stray whiskers and soap scum in the sink and seemingly makes no effort to clean up after himself at all. I personally suspect he may be the culprit behind at least two of the above three paragraphs.


• While hauling boxes down to our lower-level storage area (or as we like to call it "the wine cellar), Ms. D noticed there was a light coming from beneath the unusually closed door of our story hour room. Opening it to investigate, she found two teenagers, a guy and a girl. They were both clothed, though the girl was just putting on her coat. Immediately they adopted what she described as incredibly guilty expressions. Before she could ask them what they were doing in an otherwise unpopulated area of the building that we prefer patrons stay the hell out of, they dashed out the lower level back door and were gone. None of the staff had seen anyone go downstairs in the first place, so we have no idea how long they'd been down there and, lacking any infa-red Woods lamps, can only guess what they'd been up to.

Cat Piss Man (a.k.a. "Bodily Excretions Week: Day 3")

In our local kingdom of stinky patrons, there are some royally fetid gems.

Naturally, the king of this empire is Mr. Stanky.

Second in line of succession, perhaps surprisingly, is Mr. Stankier who, while outranking Mr. Stanky in pure stank power, is still rated only second because, generously, he visits us only about a tenth as often.

Third up is The Sweatiest Woman in All the Land (ne, the Urineiest Woman in all the Land). I must say, though, that while she has been a more frequent visitor as of recent, I've found she no longer really smells sweaty or uriney at all. Maybe I'm catching her on good days, but let's hope this is a permanent change. However, even with her current diminished stank power, she's still third based on nasal-memory alone.

Fourth would be Bear Piss Man, who is no longer in the area, but ranks fourth all the same. He is so named not only because that's what he smelled like but also because we were pretty sure he had free access to such a substance in his line of work as a carny running an animal display at the local fair. Bear Piss Man became progressively more offensive as the days of the fair passed and progressively more insistent that the staff should come visit his booth at the fair. If we dropped his name, he said, we could get in for free. We had no desire to do this, however, because by the end of the week this guy could clear the computers of patrons within seconds of his arrival. We also learned we were wrong about the bear piss. By his own admission, late in the week, he actually ran the Freak Tent, which gave us all sorts of unsettling mental images to accompany his aroma.

Let us not forget Crusty the Patron, either, who I'll refrain from detailing as it is getting close to lunch time. (Okay, so it's only 9 a.m. here, but somewhere in the world it is indeed lunch time.)

And we've had an assortment of stinky drifters who smell of sweat, but who are often entertaining, so we don't mind so much.

Last week the stinky patron royal family saw a new and dangerous threat to their hierarchy amassing its armies on the horizon. I first noticed it shortly after arriving for my shift one day.

While shelving books near the computer area and comfy chair reading section, my nose detected the unmistakable odor of cat piss. I say unmistakable because, as the owner of a thankfully-retired former World Champion Cat-Piss-Distributor (the Official World-Champion Cat-Piss-Distributor of the 1996 Summer Olympics), I know it well. The smell seemed to be coming from a particular comfy chair, which disturbed me greatly. However, upon my next trip through the area, the smell had vanished from the chair. Moments later, though, as I was turning back to the desk, I caught it again, now coming from somewhere near the fireplace.

"Um... have we let a bunch of cats run free in the library recently?" I asked Mrs. C after returning to the desk.

Mrs. C shook her head. "It's him," she said, pointing back toward the fireplace. Sprawled there on one of our comfy sofas, practically on his back, his ass nearly completely off the front edge of the seat cushion, his legs jutting way the hell out in EVERYBODY's way, was the Coot.

Lord, beer me strength.

The Coot, it turns out, was wearing a winter jacket that has, evidently, been steeped in cat urine. It's quite foul and quite unholy and he seems to be either quite unaware of it or is quite aware of it but just doesn't quite give a damn. Frankly either of those options seems plausible.

So because of our stubborn lack of policy allowing us to point out to stinky patrons that they are making our very EYES BLEED with their stench, we had to sit in his cat piss fumes for most of the business day.

Two days later, the Coot returned, but no longer smelled like cat piss. Ah, very good, we collectively thought. He'd washed his coat or has otherwise been given a heads up.

Nope.

A day later, he was back and pissy-smelling. Either he'd worn a different coat on the intervening day, or his cleaned coat had been given a fresh cat-spraying.

So far the War of the Stankites has not commenced in full, as no other members of the royal family have been present to defend their territory from this new aggressor. It's only a matter of time, though, before the battle for the throne commences and the valley runs yellow with the secretions of our enemies.

Attack of the S.E.W.S.

Recently, I began noticing that every time I checked our public men's restroom to make sure it was clean and stocked with necessities, the countertop around our sink was awash with water. This seemed very odd, to me, because the sink's faucets are quite tame in their water pressure and wouldn't have splashed onto the countertop without a goodly degree of help.

I theorized that we had another mystery patron on our hands, akin to the Serial Shitter. This new shadowy figure, however, could only have been known as the Serial Excessive Water-Splasher, which isn't nearly as sexy a name.

Now, granted, we're very happy that our patrons are washing their hands after making tinkle or stinky, but it's very annoying to have to mop up excess water several times per day. And, sure, our paper towel dispenser is nearly three feet away from the sink itself, requiring some degree of travel from the sink, over the countertop and a small section of floor to reach the towels. However, the fact that I'm perfectly capable of washing my hands in the very same sink without leaving even one drop on the counter would seem to indicate that this wasn't the root cause of the problem. I tried various ways of testing the sink to make sure it wasn't a defect in its manufacture, but could not recreate the water pooling effect through natural use. The additional fact water is often splashed on BOTH sides of the sink and not just the one nearest the paper towels indicated to me that someone was intentionally moistening our countertop.

Mrs. A suggested it was the doing of some of our Unobstructed Doors clients. That I would be able to accept, but for the frequency of the occurrence. This was happening not only daily, but multiple times during the day. This was the fault of a regular, which narrowed the spectrum of the search somewhat.

Right away the list of my top suspects included Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, Mr. Little Stupid and The Coot. I was particularly suspicious of The Coot, because while Gene and Mr. Little Stupid can hog up the innanet for hours at a time, the Coot regularly stays parked in our comfy chairs by the windows for the entire day. He builds himself a little nest there, with stacks of books and magazines and personal belongings on the tables nearby. We even had a recent incident in which the Coot vanished, leaving his nest behind including his glasses and a light jacket. We searched the entire building for him, fearing he'd crawled off somewhere and died, but couldn't find a trace of him. Eventually, he walked in the front door, having gone on a stroll outside for a while, returned to his nest and remained there for the rest of the day.

Yeah, I could see the Coot splashing water. He was probably one of these people who eshewed the use of paper towels entirely, preferring either an air-dryer or, because we lack an air-dryer, to just fling the water from his hands in the general direction of our countertop. The only problem with this is that there is never water to be found on the mirror above the sink, which you would expect to find following a hand-flinging. Also problematic, the water on the countertop usually appeared in a volume that was more than could have dripped off of two hands on one try. Again with the evidence of premeditation.

Days later, I noticed the Coot was in-house and that someone had again moistened our bathroom counter excessively. I cleaned it all up and set about to keep watch on the people who went into the restroom. After a couple of hours, the Coot gathered up his belongings (leaving behind all the piles of magazines and books he'd been browsing) and departed the building. Less than 30 seconds later, he returned, stepped into the restroom for a minute, then departed for good. I bolted for the restroom. Sure enough, there was a damned lake atop our counter!

"AH HAH!" I cried in a low whipser upon exiting and making my way back to the circ-desk. "It's the Coot!"

Mrs. B looked confused until I told her the breakthrough in my investigation. She found it improbable that the Coot was the only suspect, as the ladies room seems to have its fair share of excess water splashing too.

I then dashed to find Mrs. A and tattle on the Coot. I figured she'd be up in arms, as he's one of her least favorite people, even though he no longer parks outside her office to groan and fart and sing. She wasn't surprised at the news, but said there wasn't much we could do about it. It would just be one more thing to add to the list of annoying habits this man exhibits in our presence, for several hours at a stretch, on a daily basis.

Who's Got the 10 and a Half (minus the half) 2007?

My fellow "liberry" ass. and former newbie greenhorn, Ms. M, is almost always willing to fill in whenever any of the rest of the staff have pressing outside scheduling conflicts. I had one of those earlier this week and she was kind enough to fill in for me during it. She's actually racked up quite a bit of credit with me in that regard over the past few months, so when I heard she needed Thursday off I figured it was time to pay her back. Granted, I was already scheduled to be at work from 9 to 1 today, which would turn this into a 10 hour shift. I agreed all the same. It's been a while since I've had a 10 hour shift, but in the past they've been great blogging fodder. And at least with Mrs. A, B, C and J present, it wouldn't be a 10 hour solo shift, which is what my previous 10 hour shifts have usually been. The drawback to it being a near full staff shift, though, is that it's difficult to blog it in real time. So I spent the day jotting notes to myself on scrap paper and tucking them into spare pockets to be able to reconstruct at home the following day. 

9:02 a.m.— I arrive at work 2 minutes after 9 due to leaving the house a bit late. However, it was completely necessary for me to make a new thermos full of coffee.

9:05 a.m.— The Coot arrives for what will likely be a 10 hour stay himself. He heads for his favorite seat outside Mrs. A's office where, as in accordance with tradition, he will groan and wail and burp and fart whenever Mrs. A has to use the phone or, indeed, her voice. 

9:15 a.m.— I process the huge stack of periodicals that have piled up since I was last here. As I do so, Mrs. C and Mrs. B are inspecting the general fiction walls, pulling shelving slips out of books and noting whether or not they are shelved correctly. Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S, as per usual, has several that are misshelved, a surprise to no one.  

9:37 a.m.— The staff discusses the fact that we have to move story hour from our usual activity area to the upstairs nonfiction floor due to the fact that we're having a class of violinists and their instructor in today to play for the story hour kids. We put signs up to that effect on the activity room door and then another on the library's front door in the hope that our traditional late comers, (i.e. little Kayla's family), will note them and be quiet when entering. 

9:41 a.m.— Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine arrives for his first computer shift of the day. 

9:45 a.m.— A few months back, Ms. S ran out of her usual orange shelving slips. At that point, she cut out and carefully initialed a large supply of pink shelving slips and in the intervening months, she's continued to use both orange and pink. Recently, former newbie greenhorn Ms. M ran out of her yellow shelving slips, so she too cut a bunch out of pink ones and carefully initialed them, apparently so that they wouldn't be confused with Ms. S's pink shelving slips. While sorting the various slips that Mrs. C and Mrs. B pulled earlier, I make a command decision and announce to the rest of the staff at hand that I am throwing away both sets of pink slips on the grounds that it is moronic to have them in the first place.

9:54 a.m.— The Bakers arrive for story hour. They bring 12,000 books to return. Amazingly, all of their books are from our library branch. 

9:55 a.m.— Mr. B-Natural arrives for his first computer session. He puts 10:00 as his signup time, no doubt thinking it will give him five extra minutes. I start his timer so it won't. 

10:00 a.m.— Story Hour begins. Kayla's family fails to arrive, a surprise to no one. Tuning of stringed instruments can be heard through the very floor above my head. I'm sure the Coot is thrilled.  

10:05 a.m.— I start checking the shelves for this week's overdues.  

10:10 a.m. — Little Kayla's family still has yet to arrive. 

10:27 a.m.— Mr. B-Natural departs, inquiring about the violin noise as he does.  

10:46 a.m.— While still checking shelves for overdues, I see that someone's flagged one of the books I shelved as being misshelved. I double check it, but cannot determine how it is misshelved. It's a mystery book shelved in the mysteries section, it's way too old to be in new fiction, and it's author, Davis, is shelved neatly after Davies and before Debin, just as it should be. What gives?  

11:00 a.m.— Story hour concludes. I notice Gene disappeared at some point, for he is no longer on his computer, nor the can, nor elsewhere in the building. 

11:16 a.m.— No way. It's not even noon and the mail has already arrived. Glory be!  

11:28 a.m.— I sneak away to my hidy-hole in the supply cabinet and retrieve my emergency toothbrush, with which I head to the sink outside our little public restroom under the stairs to brush my teeth and rid myself of coffee breath. No sooner is the brush in my mouth than the Coot squeezes past me to use the can. No good can come of this. I hurriedly brush my teeth and flee the area before he can release any fumes at me.  

11:30 a.m.— I spy the Coot outside, headed for his car. He better have flushed.  

11:40 to 11:47 a.m.— Mrs. A, Mrs. B, Mrs. J and I all stand around and tell Ms. S stories, chronicling her latest misadventures in dumbassity. 

 11:50 a.m. — While pulling some shelving slips Mrs. C and Mrs. B missed, I find another pink shelving slip, this one with Ms. S’s initials on one side and Ms. M’s initials on the other. Damn, they’re conspiring together now!!  

12:03 p.m. — I walk down the street to the local market to pick up one of their impressively generous and patron-awe-inspiring salads for lunch.  

12:10 p.m. — I return to the "liberry" and begin eating my impressive and tasty salad.  

12:18 p.m. — Mr. Little Stupid arrives for a computer.  

12:28 p.m. — I finish my salad and go brush my teeth again. Eww, salad breath.  

12:34 p.m. — I receive a phone call from one of the New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids. I think it's Delbert. He inquires as to whether or not he will be allowed to use a computer should he turn up at the library. It's our policy, you see, that school-aged children of appropriate computer-usage age, even equipped with a permission slip on file, are not allowed to use a computer during school hours, unless they are home school students doing genuine research. According to Delbert, though, he is being schooled in an alternative school, which means he's gotten in trouble at regular school and has been sent there for reform. The alternative school doesn't meet until after 4, so he thinks this is a loophole. I bring it up to Mrs. A and C and they say he can only use a computer during normal school hours if he has a signed letter from his alternative school teacher saying he can, and then can only use it for genuine research. He can't come in and surf MySpace. I gleefully inform him of this.  

12:40 p.m. — Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch arrives for computer time. He brings his mommy with him, who I believe he still lives with and is likely his only means of transportation. What a colossal loser. 

12: 42 p.m. — The rest of the staff leave for lunch. It is Mrs. J's birthday and they're taking her to Crapplebees. Wow, and I thought we liked Mrs. J.  

12:57 p.m. — Jimmy and mommy leave.  

1:00 p.m. — I get a few minutes of peace and begin typing this up in hopes of putting some of it up on the blog early. 

1:04 p.m. — Sudden rush on computers, including a usually clueless wireless guy who will no doubt have trouble logging on and then have to get me to help him.  

1:10 p.m. — Our first "What are your hours?" call of the day. 

1:13 p.m.— Mr. Little stupid approaches the desk and asks me how to spell the word "talk." I tell him.  

1:15 p.m.— Lennie arrives for his Thursday shift. He complains that "it's so hot you can't stand it." He notices me typing and becomes very interested. I stop. 

1:30 p.m.— An old man with a long silver beard arrives saying he has 25 boxes of book donations for us, where do we want them? Since we aren't busy at all, I tell him to drive around to our storage area (i.e. the basement) and I'll come out and help him haul them in.  

1:31 p.m. — There's a sudden rush on the desk, with checkouts and reference questions. The phone also starts ringing with people calling for Mrs. C. I'm the only one on staff, except for Lennie and now can't leave the desk to go help this old man haul boxes. Instead, I send Lennie out and tell him to go unlock the basement and help haul boxes. He leaves.  

1:38 p.m.— The patron tide stemmed, I dash out to the basement door. The old man has two other slightly younger men helping him haul boxes out of a truck and into the basement. Lennie is standing there idly, saying that he'll lock the door back when they finish. I tell him that he's supposed to be helping them, but he doesn't move. One of the old men tells me that they have quite a few more boxes of books they wish to donate. I tell him he'd better give us a few days to get things sorted and cleared out to the BIGGER storage area, before bringing in any more. Mrs. B, our resident donation sorter and reboxer, is going to faint when she sees all these boxes. She only just yesterday got the basement and current crop of book donations sorted and sent off to our larger storage area, off property.  

1:40 p.m.— I dash back inside where a patron is waiting. 

 1:56 p.m. — Lennie won't quit snooping whenever I try to continue typing this up. I don't know how much he's capable of reading, but I learned long ago not to underestimate him. He seems to sense that I'm doing something of interest, though, and keeps asking me questions, like "Who are you writing a letter to?" "Myself," I tell him. I switch from the screen to a scrap of paper, but he's even now trying to get a gander of this very note.  

2:00 p.m. — The rest of the staff returns from lunch.  

2:07 p.m.— I ask Mrs. C and Mrs. B why my book in the mysteries was flagged as misshelved. They say they weren't the ones who flagged it, though. Must be a dumbass newbie greenhorn who did it as some sort of half-assed revenge for my flagging all their misshelved books over the past few months. They can't even get that right.  

2:12 p.m.— I leave for an extended break. Mrs. C tells me I can take more than an hour, as I'm the poor soul on til closing.  

3:30 p.m.— I return. Mrs. C says that drama has occurred in my absence. She says an older lady phoned and asked Mrs. B if there was a man here delivering books to be donated. When told that there had been some men delivering books earlier, who were now gone, the lady said she wanted to leave a message for the man that he needed to phone home. Then the lady burst into tears and hung up. No idea what that was all about. The other news, though, is that the old guys who donated the books took all the empty boxes we'd been saving to sort donated books into. Mrs. B had been begging for some for a week and now they were gone. Lennie told Mrs. C that the men asked him if they could take the boxes but he didn't answer them, so they took them anyway. We'll get them back, most likely in a few days when they bring more books. 

3:45 p.m.— I see that Delbert, the aforementioned Neighborhood Auxiliary League Member, is now using a computer. It's after school hours are over, so there's no rule against it. However, he's been on for over half an hour now and I have to bust him off for another patron. Mr. Little Stupid is still around too, but had, apparently been busted off before because he's now on a different computer than when I left. When I go to reboot Delbert's station, Mr. Little Stupid asks me how to spell "work."  

3:59 p.m.— Fatty Manchild arrives for a computer. He's not wearing jams, per se, but he is wearing shorts. They look to be of the no-print, off-white, board-short variety.  

4:06 p.m.— Mr. Little Stupid finally leaves.  

4:18 p.m.— A woman and three children, each of whom is whining for books, approaches the desk. I hear her tell them that they can't have any books from our library because they have their own library at school to borrow from. They persist. She tells them that kids aren't allowed to have library cards at our library. Never mind the fact that they just exited the CHILDREN'S room, this is what she says. I suspect she's lying to them to get them to quit whining. They continue. She spies me and says, "Kids can't get library cards here, can they?" Her "can they?" seems loaded with intent. "Um... I guess that all depends on what answer you're looking for," I tell her. "The truth," she says. "Okay. Sure, kids can get library cards here." This is not what the woman (their baby-sitter, I think) wants to hear, because she immediately tells the kids that she didn't trust them to check books out on her card since they'd lost so many from school. "But I only lost one, this year," one of the kids says. I gamely try to back her up a bit by telling them that we're really serious about getting our books back and will send our enforcer, Mrs. J, to come get them. They leave with only the sitter's books.  

4:30 p.m.— Yay! I get to make a trip to the post office. People hate us at the post office. Not the postal workers themselves, who seem incapable of caring how many packages we have to mail each week; it's the other customers who hate us for clogging up the lines for 10 minutes at a stretch. I feel their pain. Fortunately, we only have one box and an envelope to mail and I get them sent off without incident.  

4:47 p.m.— I return to find that someone has had a blowout in the public restroom while I was gone and the whole reference hall is super butt-fume stinky.  

5:05 p.m.— Everyone else on staff leaves for the day.  

6:00 p.m.— Been pretty slow going. I've called all my holds and had time to type a bit.  

6:01 p.m.— A patron brings in a book for return. He looks ever so slightly miffed that he actually had to come in the building to do this, as the book return stays locked during hours we're open. 

6:05 p.m.— Wow, an honest to God reference question! A lady wanted organizational information about the W0rld Hea1th Organizati0n and the Pan Amer!can Hea1th Organizati0n. We have no books specifically on them but EBSC0 had loads of articles, two of which seemed to suit her criteria. I print them for her. She writes us a check for a whole dollar. 

6:18 p.m.— A little kid—who's here with his mom and is maybe 7 years of age, if that—comes up to the desk to tell me about how much he likes Shrek and Shrek II and Shrek the Third, even though he's not seen it. He has matching fake tribal tatoos extending from beneath his short sleeved shirt down his arms nearly to his wrists. At least, I hope they're fake; his mom is sporting a few real tattoos. 

6:24 p.m.— Some child is screaming outside. It's that sort of high-pitched, make a dog's ears bleed and your spine seize up sort of squeal that should be reserved only for occasions when murder is about to be committed, but whatever kid it is seems to be flinging it around the neighborhood pretty liberally. It's not a cry of distress. Most likely it's more a scream meaning: "It's raining and I'm getting wet!" 

6:45 p.m.— Closing duties begin in earnest.  

6:47 p.m. — the Purple Nun's brother arrives, but leaves within a few minutes. 

6:55 p.m.— And I am alone and nearly finished for the day. 

6:56 p.m.— Some goofa pulls up outside, no doubt with 400 books to return. 

6:56 p.m.— False alarm. They were just parking here to walk downtown. 

7:00 p.m. — We are officially closed.

Nonactual Conversations Not Actually Heard in any Libraries #74

THE DUFUS— Hey, guys, look... it’s a beautiful sunny day!

GENE GENE THE GENEAL0GY MACHINE— Sure is. In fact, it’s the first day in over two months that it’s not snowing, raining, windy or otherwise cold as ass. I even saw Fatty Manchild wearing a pair of 80's style jam shorts.

MR. B-NATURAL— That's all that piece of crap ever wears.

GENE— Oh, yeah.

DUFUS— Anyway, since it's such a nice day, what say we go for a picnic?

(long silence)

DUFUS— Just kidding. Let's head down to the “liberry” for several hours of innanet time, instead.

BRENT & BRICE: THE NEW DEVIL TWINS— Yayyyy!

GENE— I don’t know, guys. I saw an awful lot of cars out front. I think it’s probably pretty busy in there. It is Friday.

DUFUS— So we’re supposed to just sit by while other people use the innanet? That shit is ours by right!

GENE— You have a point. Okay, I'm in. But only if we all sign up at once.

DUFUS— Of course we’re all going to sign up at once.

MR. B-NATURAL— And I’m not going unless I can get all cranky about having to wait 15 whole minutes. Then I'll demand the Wall$treet Journal, leaf through it at the circulation desk, in the way of God and everybody, until I find the cr0ssw0rd puzzle, which I'll then demand the staff photocopy for me. Then I'm going to stand at the circ desk and grunt and growl and do my puzzle until the staff are crazed and on the verge of kicking me in the junk. And every time any of the staff go back to log on one of the two people waiting ahead of me, I'll assume they're doing it for me and follow them back, then growl some more when it's not for me after all.

DUFUS— Sure thing.

GENE— I'll sign up last so I can have plenty of time to sit around the main room and torment the staff, too. I'll tell them long-winded stories about each and every one of my ancestors that I've been able to find geneal0gy records for. Like my Great Uncle Stan, who once worked for a guy who sold tools to a man who worked as a mechanic for a crop dusting pilot until he got an infected hangnail and had to go on unemployment—that’s my uncle, mind you, not the crop duster. Except they didn’t have unemployment back then, so he just died, leaving a wife and nineteen kids, each of whom was a fascinating character on their own. Like his daughter Loofie, who…

MR. B-NATURAL— God, shut him up before I sic my dog on him!!!

DUFUS— Um, Gene, how `bout saving it for the library, huh? I mean, I'm all about the name-dropping myself, but damn.

BRICE— What about me? I’m still banned from using a computer until I pay for that book I lost.

BRENT— Hah! I paid my fines off, so I can use a computer again! You know, after waiting 20 or 30 minutes for my turn, and all. I'm gonna MySpace like there's no tomorrow! In your face!

DEVIL TWIN AUXILLIARY MEMBER TONY— I’m going to sign up for a computer too! They still let me use them even though I stole $20 from the cashbox that one time. In your face twice, Brice!

MR. B-NATURAL— What, are you kids green or something? No, Brice, listen. Just sign up for a computer anyway. The staff can never tell you and Brent apart, even though one of you is clearly a head taller than the other. And even if they catch on, they’ll just be pissed off you had the sac to try and sign up again after all the times they've told you were banned because of fines. It's win-win!

BRICE— I know, I’ll sign up with my middle name. Then they might think we have a third brother.

MR. B-NATURAL— That's the idea! You're catching on, now.

TONY— Yeah, and if they do call you on it, I’ll help run interference by signing up for computers repeatedly throughout the afternoon, often returning to the desk to sign up again before my time has even run out. You’ll always have a shoulder to look over.

MR. B-NATURAL— Oh, that’ll squeeze a Cleveland Steamer in their Wheaties real good! The only thing that could make it better is if you tried to sneak some coffee back, too.

GENE— And because the staff will quickly learn to avoid me, as though I were coated in dog feces, I'll lie in wait for them in other rooms, jumping out to tell them about all the lists of my relatives I wasn't able to get the computers to print properly last time and to show them the many lists I was able to print. Like this one that has my uncle Stan's daughter Loofie's name on it. I remember that my grandmother once told me about this time when Loofie stumped her toe on the edge of the tub and...

DUFUS— Gene!!! You know I love ya, guy, but I swear to God I'm going to hit you throat with a rolled up New Y0rker if you don't shut the hell up! In fact, when we get to the library, I'm going to wait for my computer far away from you. I'll go upstairs, where I can flip through Newsweek's entertainment section and catch up on all the people I used to be close personal friends of back when I was a demi-god in California. I'll flip from page to page and sigh longingly. And, every now and then, I'll look up to watch that exceptionally slow staff member as she takes the better part of three hours to put new spine labels on only a couple of dozen books.

RANDOM MALE PATRON— I’m just going to come in repeatedly over the course of the entire afternoon and act all impatient and give the staff dirty looks that there aren’t any computers free. I won’t actually sign up for one and wait my turn, of course, but will instead leave for half an hour and come back to do it all again.

MR. B-NATURAL— Also a very good tactic.

THE COOT— I don't care about no compooter gigitygatchets. I'm going to set up shop outside the noisy lady's office, slouched waaay down in the chair until my legs block the entire walkway. And I'm going to grunt and sing and fart all the live long day.

DUFUS— Knock yourself out.

THE COOT— *FAAAART*

(Twenty minutes to an hour later)

DUFUS— Hey, this keyboard has flaky white stuff in the keys. What gives?

CRUSTY THE PATRON— Oh, sorry. That was me. I was in for several hours before you arrived and got booted from computer to computer, so they're all pretty much contaminated with my buttery, flaky, beard crust.

EVERYONE— Ewwwwwwww!

(While the above dialogue is fiction, the events described pretty much went down exactly like that.)

Mrs. A vs. The Coot

Our patron known as The Coot has, over the past few months, rapidly become one of our our most frequent patrons. In fact, without ever touching a keyboard himself, he is encroaching on the visitation frequency and duration of such innanet crowd luminaries as Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, Crusty the Patron, Mr. B-Natural and even he who must really really not be named, because he hasn't been seen for nearly a year and we'd like to keep it that way, and who favors puffy white winter wear. And. as I've said before, the Coot is a library patron who actually uses the library for reasons other than internet access. Sure, he might spend several hours a day, several days a week in our presence, but he spends that time reading, often from classics and works of philosophy. And other than the fact that he often leaves his reading material stacked around whatever chair he spends his time in, so that we the staff have to clean up after him later, he's mostly inoffensive. Well, except to Mrs. A.

Mrs. A does not like the Coot very much because it's outside her office that he likes to plant himself for his hours-long reading sessions. This too would be okay, except that the Coot tends to make a lot of noise, usually in the form of painful moans and groans, coughs, snorts, loud yawns, and occasional bursts of song. Over the few months he's been doing this, we've determined that he's usually at his most vocal when Mrs. A is on the phone or otherwise making noise herself. In other words, he's doing it in protest of having his reading disturbed by phone conversations near his chair of choice. The thing is, Mrs. A is the library director and as such has to take and make numerous phone calls throughout the day, not to mention frequent in-person meetings in her office. The other thing is, there are seats and more comfy areas to sit elsewhere in the library that are not in proximity to Mrs. A's office. The Coot just happens to like sitting outside her office. And as long as he's there, the two of them wind up creating a duet mixture of speech and painful groans resulting in annoyance to one and all.

One day, Mr. A came to visit Mrs. A at work and the two of them were speaking in her office. In protest to the normal conversational volume of their voices, the Coot let loose with a horrible-sounding groan. Mrs. A later told me that Mr. A looked at her and asked what was up with the mortally-wounded-sounding man seated outside her office.

"Oh, he just does that whenever I'm talking," she said, not even trying to keep her voice down. And to give an example, Mrs. A let fly with her own horrible-sounding groan at full volume. With that, the Coot stood up and went into the nonfiction room to find a quieter chair.

The Coot

The Coot has been in the Benign Irritants column of our Rogues Gallery for a while now, but I've not had much to say about him because he's not been much of a hassle to me personally. Well, until this week.

As far as patrons go, the Coot is actually pretty ideal in most respects. He visits the "liberry" frequently and stays for several hours at a stretch, either reading books or periodicals. He doesn't hound us for computers, nor does he seem to have any use for them at all. He keeps to himself. And while he rarely checks anything out, thereby keeping our circulation numbers slightly lower than he might, he is a user of the library in its best sense.

Of course, not all is rosy with the Coot. He has, on occasion, complained in bitter tones to our staff about a lack of certain nonfiction titles on our shelves that he wants to read. (We've offered to ILL them and he has sometimes taken us up on the offer.) The Coot has also disingratiated himself to Mrs. A in particular by being a less than quiet patron.

See, Mrs. A's office is located beside our periodicals area, at which there are two semi-comfy chairs and a small table. This is where the Coot likes to nest, piling the tiny table high with periodicals and books that he peruses throughout his visiting hours. While he's perusing, though, the Coot is known to make many strange noises. Sometimes these noises take the form of the usual coughing and sneezing and snorting. More often, though, they manifest as loud and painful sounding moans, groans and wails. Sometimes, he sings. We don't know if the Coot is in actual pain, though we suppose it's possible. Our theory about his noises has evolved somewhat. Originally we thought he was in pain. Then we thought he might have some form of tourettes. Now, though, we are starting to suspect that the Coot moans and wails as editorial comment against the frequent phone calls Mrs. A receives throughout the day disturbing his reading time. Whatever the case, the noise he makes drives Mrs. A nuts and she's frequenly fled our office to get away from it. And sometimes, her noise seems to drive him further into our nonfiction room, where he relocates his nest to a different semi-comfy chair.

None of this affects me, so I don't really care if he emits the odd wail now and then. What does affect me is his seeming inability to put our periodicals back where he found them.

One of my duties as "liberry" ass. is to process and catalog the periodicals. When they arrive, I enter them into the system, put barcodes on the ones that need them, stamp REFERENCE ONLY on the ones that don't and haul `em all upstairs to stick in the magazine display shelf. Each magazine has its proper place on the shelf, clearly labeled for all to see. The Coot cares not for labels. If he actually manages to put a magazine back on the shelf at all—which is rare, because most of the time he just leaves them wherever he happens to be nesting when he's finished reading them—he refuses to put it back in its proper place. He just wedges it on in wherever his hand happens to fall and walks away. Granted, he's not the only patron who does this. (In fact, evidence suggests that most periodical reading patrons do this, but then again I wouldn't notice when a patron has put a magazine back properly, precisely because it would be put back properly.) However, the Coot is the most flagrant disregarder of our magazine labeling system.

At closing time on Monday, after a day of fending off book-shoving brats, I went upstairs and found our magazine rack in the most utter state of disarray I'd ever seen. Someone, the Coot, I'm guessing, as he'd been right there reading magazines all day, had relocated nearly every magazine we have on display to what I can only describe as its OPPOSITE location on the display shelf. Seventeen was shelved under U.S. News & World Report, Time under Organic Gardening, Rolling Stone under Mother Earth News, Atlantic Monthly under FamilyFun and Parenting was shelved under High Times. (Okay, I am kidding about that last one. It was really shelved as Teen People.)

I don't know for sure that the Coot was responsible. It could have been that book-shoving brat's revenge for busting him shoving books. But it seems like it could have been the Coot at play. I wonder what sort of editorial comment he was trying to make this time.