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.

Stanky Patron Mystery Theatre

Today was stanky patron day at the "liberry". (Not to be confused with Skanky Patron Day, which is a whole other problem.)

First up was a woman who had actually paid us a stinky visit yesterday as well. Today she was still wearing the same black T-shirt and still smelled of old dried, re-moistened, then dried again sweat. It followed her in a cloud, sticking to everything she passed so that she left a wake of foulness. Of course, she wanted to use a computer.

Next up, our friendly Drifter wandered in with his own cloud of week-old funky B.O. He too wanted a computer.

Soon the computer hall was awaft with the mixture of their fumes, which I knew would need fumigating later on. Our can of Airwick Breeze is getting mighty low these days. Granted these two have nothing on some of the stank factories that have shambled in here in the past, but it was still unpleasant. Throughout the time they were in, I kept wandering into pockets of funk that refused to diffuse. It was like getting slapped in the face with a dead fish--your eyes start watering and you feel like you've been personally assaulted. I liken it to walking down Bourbon Street at night.

Speaking of the Drifter, he came up to the desk last week and asked me a question no other patron has ever posed.

"Where in the area is a good place to meet women?"

"Hmm," I said. "Not sure, really. I'm married, so that kind of information is of little use to me."

He said someone recommended one of the local redneck dance clubs, which might not be a bad answer, but from what I hear the place tends to get a little rough once the clientele are in their cups. I told him this, adding, "I'd be a little scared to go in there, myself. But then again, I'm not much for the drunken dancing scene, unless I'm one of the drunks dancing."

After today, though, I could have given him a valuable tip on meeting women: The ladies aren't usually IN to the whole stanky pits thing. And neither are we, so please... A shower?

He's evidently not doing too bad for himself. He's working in the area and saved up enough money to buy a small motorcycle. Granted, it's one of these moto-cross style bikes that's not exactly designed for street use, but it's transportation all the same. He's already fallen off of it, though, and spent much of our conversation changing his road-rash bandage in front of me.

Later in the afternoon, after the place had time to air out, one of our regular patrons came in with something of a mystery for us. The way this patron tells it, it seems his two sons had been in the "liberry" last week and were using one of our patron computers when they noticed that the man using the computer just down the line seemed to be looking at pictures of something involving naked people. Naturally, they were curious and kept looking to see the pictures the man had on his screen. Suddenly, the kids realized that the two naked people in the picture were both men. They were shocked and ran home to tell dad.

The dad wasn't mad at us. He just wanted to let us know what his boys had witnessed so we would be alert. He knew there wasn't really anything we could do about it, as it's not our policy to keep people from looking at porn (though how this guy got through the filters is another good question).

The thing is, we have no idea who the porn-surfing patron was. Mrs. C suggested Parka, but I told her I've never spied anything with a Y chromosome on his screen EVER, so I seriously doubted it was him.

However, our usual suspects for that particular brand of porn--The Untalented Mr. Ripley and the Even Less Talented Mr. Ripley--haven't been seen here in months. Though it does turn out that one of them has been SEEN elsewhere.

While we were discussing possible candidates, Mrs. C mentioned that she and Mrs. A ran actually into the Untalented Mr. Ripley while visiting a library in another county last week. It seems he's living in a half-way house in that county and using the library there. They said he didn't look as bad as they've seen him in the past, but was still awfully scrawny.

As to the Even Less Talented Mr. Ripley, he's another story to tell.

To Be Continued...

Classic Lineup

Today pretty much set itself up as a classic "liberry" day, as far as these things go. And I got to live through a great deal more of it than on most Wednesdays because I had to work a full 8 hours of it. This was due to Mrs. A and Mrs. C being out all day at a meeting, with all the horror that entails, and needing a fill-in hitter at the desk.

At 8:55 I rolled in to work and found the photo-copier repairman camped out on the doorstep. The Devil Copier had been in fine form over the weekend, plaguing Miss E because a patron kept insisting on using it to photocopy the same page over and over and over despite the fact that each attempt resulted in a paper accordion jamming the copier. She finally told him to quit it and turned off the copier. Then, after two days of dealing with similar behavior from it, Mrs. C finally called the repair people and insisted that something was wrong. Over the phone, the Devil Copier repair guy told her to break off a little piece of plastic toward the rear of the paper output slot that seemed to be causing all the jamming. She did. It stopped jamming on the rear and began jamming at the front side instead. So the Devil Copier repairman promised he would come in for a personal repair visit. That was yesterday. Today, just as he'd promised, he was here to do mighty battle.

At 9:00 a.m., I opened up the shop and then noticed something addressed to me on the counter. They were two maps with a note attached. See, last week a couple of female tourists had come in on the local Tri-Metro walking tour and asked if we had any maps of the area. We usually do, but the map-restocking people haven't been in for a while so we were fresh out. However, I had one in my car, which I gave to the tourists since I can get a new free map as soon as more come in. Well the two maps waiting for me today included my original free-map as well as one of the `spensive, high-quality, glossy paper, county-maps that are sold locally. The Post-it note attached said the ladies thanked me for the use of my map and hoped I'd get some use out of the `spensive one. That was terribly nice.

At 9:01 a.m. my new good mood fell. I discovered that none of our computers were connecting to the network at all. This means our card catalog, our circulation software and the internet were all down for the count. I try to phone some other local libraries to see if they're in the same boat, but they're all lazy and don't open til later in the day. Finally, after having to beat back a few members of the internet crowd with the three-hole punch, Mrs. C called to tell me that everything was down and that she'd put in a call to the tech guys at home office. They called me shortly and walked me through some network troubleshooting. Turns out the UPS battery backup for our router had stopped working. I plugged the router into the other UPS we have and everything seemed to work hunky dory. Well, except for the fact that Patron Computer #3 refused to have anything to do with reconnecting to the network and I immediately became far too busy with patrons to do anything about it. After several patrons complained bitterly about not being able to check their e-mail on it, I finally just slapped a big sign on it that read "BAD COMPUTER" and just operated with the two good ones. The internet crowd was NOT happy about this and gave me dirty looks about having to wait to get on for the rest of the day. I even had to bust Mr. B-Natural off and he gave me a solid grumble for old times sake.

Back at the Devil Copier, the repair guy had made several accordions of his own. This is suprising, cause the copier usually behaves its best when the repair guy's around. Shortly, the repair guy pried open the Devil Copier and removed a large section of its guts which he took out to his truck and rebuilt from the ground up. Once reassembled, everything seemed to work fine. "That should satisfy the ladies," he said. Screw the ladies, what about me? Before he could get out of the parking lot, I grabbed the darkest book I could find, Stephen King's Skeleton Crew, slapped it on the glass and pressed the little green button for copying. I even left the lid ajar, which is a double no-no that usually causes the copier to self destruct. Instead, the copy came out just fine and very dark indeed. Perhaps the devils have been exorcised.

Lady, I know you didn't just park your big ass Ford Explorer in the middle of the damned road blocking the entire street. Oh, no, I see you did. And now you think you're gonna hop out real quick and pop that overdue book of ours in the drop box, don't you? Yup, you sure do. Oh, so sorry... it's locked! You're gonna have to come inside anyway. Ehhh heh! That's right, honey. Climb back in your truck and go find a parking space.

And with both Mrs. A and Mrs. B gone, the day just could not pass by without a call from our Board President, Mr. Kreskin, desperate to speak to them and pissed that they're both gone. And of course, I had no idea where they'd gone so I couldn't tell him when they'd be back, which is the only thing that pisses him off more than both of them being gone. I really need to take this act on the road and go find the Amazing Randi and collect my million bucks from him, cause if there was ever proof of psychic ability it's Mr. Kreskin. He truly ONLY calls when Mrs. A and Mrs. C are both gone. It's phenomenal.

I asked a patron named Siobahn how her name was pronounced. I knew it was Gaelic and was therefore just as likely to be pronounced "Earl" as what it turned out to be, which was Shavonne.

"Yeah, you gotta watch out for the Gaelics," I said, meaning the language but immediately realizing that I'd probably just insulted her. So I lamely backpeddled, "Um, I mean, the language."

"No, the people too," she corrected. "Especially if they're raging alcoholics with a mean temper."

"Well, y'know, I wasn't gonna say anything," I said.

And it also wouldn't be a proper day with no Mrs. A and C in house if I didn't get five hundred thousand questions I can't answer. The major theme in today's unanswerables was parents asking to sign their kids up for Summer Reading. Sounds easy, but we're not doing sign-ups this week. Furthermore, I have no clue WHEN we're doing it. None. Never do. This'll be my third year to be around for Summer Reading and I'm still out of the loop. Every year I ask, beg and plead for an information sheet that tells me all the stuff I need to be able to tell parents, but I never get one. Well, okay, eventually I get one, but usually at the last second and never weeks in advance when the questions actually start. And let me tell you, these parents get real agitated about it all for fear of getting burned on signing up. We only give them a whole week (nine days, really) to sign their kids up. We don't sign any up before that week and if the parents miss out on doing it during that week it's tough luck for them. But, of course, half the parents schedule a vacation for that week and then raise holy hell when they find out how strict we are about sign-ups. Or they raise holy hell because they screwed it all up the year before and still blame us for it. Every year we explain to them that it'll be okay, we're not trying to ruin their entire summer and they can have a friend come in and sign their kids up for them while they're gone. Even this they find unreasonable. It's like we're asking for a kidney.

At around 2:30, the Drifter noticed our BAD COMPUTER sign and offered to help fix it. Seems he used to do network installation and repair for a living. Unfortunately, the patron computers have security features designed to keep patrons from doing that, so he didn't get very far. I warned him that was the case, but he said he saw it as a challenge. We chatted for a bit after he got tired of fighting the computer. I asked him what kind of flute he had round his neck. "A bamboo flute," he replied. Ah. He said he bought it at the local New Age Crap shop. We also compared notes one how irritating it can sometimes be to work in a public service job. Still, as I explained to him, even on my worst day at the "liberry" it's far less stressful than just about any other job I've had. I may bitch and complain and write excessively lengthy blog entries about it, but I certainly don't hate it.

Parkas and Drifters and Bears, Oh My!

Speaking of obits... we think we may have seen the last of Parka.

No, he didn't up and die. I wouldn't even wish that, even as much as he annoys us. Last week he applied for and received a library card. When he was filling out his form, he mentioned that he was actually from California but was staying with his parents in town. Which leads me to ask: What is it with annoying dickweeds from California returning here to move in with their parents and hog up our computers for hours on end, anyway? First the Dufus and now this guy?

Well, mystery solved, at least for Parka. Last week the local paper ran an obituary on a man we're pretty sure is Parka's father. Our guess is that he was in town because his dad was not in good shape. I'm not even going to make the obvious joke about Parka whiling away his father's last dying hours by chatting with e-Skanks on his favorite on-line dating service page. I don't know his circumstances. Maybe that's just how he winds down from a day's worth of spending quality dying time with his dad. Frankly I don't even know if Parka's really gone or if this was even his father. But we still haven't seen him for several days, so we can always hope.

Also, our Drifter from three weeks back still hasn't drifted on. I think he may have even made a few friends in the area and may be staying with them. Certainly he's found a base of operations of some sort, as he no longer carries around his enormous backpack with the flag. One of his new friends has also given him permission to use her library card, which is cool with us. At the moment we're hardly policing such matters anyway. We still have a few precious weeks left in which we don't have to be card Nazis so we can afford to be a bit lenient. Besides, we let just about anybody use anybody's card provided there's a clear line of permission... for the moment.

I get good vibes from the Drifter, though. He's a black guy, about five years younger than me (which would make him 26), with short dreds and a kind of neo-bohemian/Johnny Cash air about him. He dresses in all black (that's the Johnny Cash part), with a wide-brimmed leather hat and various interesting trinkets hung on hemp cords around his neck. Last Thursday he also had a reed flute hung on a cord, sort of like an Elderberry flute, which he played out at our picnic bench for about an hour, much to the delight of passing kids and their parents. He wasn't too bad, either.

This whole area is chock full of granola-munching, Birkenstock-clad, neo bohemian/hippie types, with a goodly assortment of genuine former hippies and sundry 60's radical trust-fund babies sprinkled in for a good mix. Some have become back to the land homesteaders, (and if that's your bag, this is a fabulous area for that sort of thing), while others have settled in to open up boutiques, coffee shops, New Age crap stores, bookstores, art galleries, etc. Many are local artisans and have their work on display at Tamarack, in Beckley. Not that I'm complaining at all. I don't always share their politics, but most of them are really great human beings. I count several among my friends here and enjoy living in an area with such an eclectic mix of people. I'm just careful not to say nice things about the president around them.

(This reminds me of a joke I just heard... The Pope comes to Washington D.C. to spend a day with President Dubya. While he's in, they decide to go out on the Potomac aboard Yacht One. While they're out there, a gust of wind comes along and blows the Pope's hat out into the water. The secret service guys get all excited and they're about to jump in to go get it when Dubya says, "Wait, I'll do it." He steps off the boat and walks across the surface of the water, picks up the Pope's hat and walks back without so much as getting his shoes wet. Everyone stands and gawks in amazement at what they've just witnessed. The next day, of course, all the nations news headlines read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM.)

Freaky Friday

Our National "Liberry" Week open house went okay today. Mrs. A made her pecan pie squares, which are an old favorite of mine from back in my pre-Atkins days. I had a sneaking suspicion, though, that the celery I brought with lunch probably tasted better than the pecan pie bars, so I did a taste test between the two just to make sure. I really couldn't decide from just one of each, so I had a couple more pecan pie squares and a couple more sticks of celery to better make the determination. Eventually, I ran out of celery, but I didn't let that stop me. The patrons also seemed to appreciate our having goodies out, some a little more than we might have hoped. Parka, for instance, made at least four trips to the table to gobble up our food.

One guy who I think was glad we had food was our very first drifter--or at least the first that I've met. I read other library blogs from library staff in larger cities (I highly recommend the ones in the side bar to the right) and one of the major issues they have to deal with is that of homeless people and drifters some of whom are quite troublesome. We don't get a lot of that in our little Tri-Metro area. Our drifter today was a drifter by the definition of the word; a guy who was passing through town on foot, hitchhiking and walking his way from Pennsylvania to Florida. He had the big pack with sleeping bag, supplies, etc. and an American flag on a stick that was protruding proudly from a pocket of it. Probably helps him get lifts. He seemed about five years my junior and struck me as a pretty smart and world-saavy young man who was just trying to get from one place to another as cheaply as possible and wasn't afraid to hoof it. I imagine he appreciated the grub and I didn't begrudge him eating it at all. I chatted with him a bit and learned of his destination. He asked what the best way was to get to I-77 and I pulled out our Atlas and showed him a couple of routes. "Is it hilly?" he asked. I just smiled. It's West Virginia; of course, it's hilly. I gave him a map of the local area, as he seemed like he might want to stay in the area for a few days.

An older couple, visitors to our town, came in to use the internet. They were doing geneological research and mostly printed several things and then began making photocopies from some of our geneal0gy books. Unfortunately, this meant they had to use our devil copier. We hate this bloody contraption. Hate it, hate it, hate it. It's extraordinarily tempramental and refuses to do its job without jamming, compressing the offending copy into an accordion of paper, about 80 percent of the time. And if anyone other than a staff member tries to do anything with it, it jams twice as fast. We used to think it was just picky about copying anything dark, but we've recently concluded that it's just a big ol' cranky piece of shit no matter what we put in it. We pay a local company to service the copier and we used to call them on a regular basis to come bludgeon it into working order. However, whenever the repair guy comes in, the copier is suddenly on its best behavior and nothing we do will cause it to jam. So the repair guy thinks we're a bunch of loons. Unfortunately, it's not a rented copier, so we're stuck with it.

So the couple camped out at the copier with a stack of books. Every minute or two one of us would have to go over and unjam the copier for the couple.

While this was going on, Wal-Mart Jesus came in and went to the reference hall. After 20 minutes or so, he came into the main room with a stack of books of his own, which he was planning to have us copy pages for him. After standing in line to get to it for a few minutes, though, he abandoned his plan, gathered up his bag and cudgel and left.