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.)
Showing posts with label The Dufus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Dufus. Show all posts
Friday, March 02, 2007
Friday, September 01, 2006
Stinking Innanet Crowd!
I'm so disappointed in our computer patrons. Now that Crusty Dave has provided us with a genuine threat to temperament, nose and the holding down of lunch, none of our regular innanet crowders seem willing to help us get rid of him.
See Crusty has proven himself perfectly willing to stay on our computers all day long, and, provided no one is in need of his computer due to the other two computers being taken up by patrons, he can actually get away with it. In order to bust him off, we need at least three other people who want computers at the same time. The trouble is, Crusty Dave is very very stinky. It's not quite the slap-you-in-the-face-with-a-dead-fish stench of Mr. Stanky, but it's ultimately a more pervasive stench because it has so much time to build up. Once any other computer user gets around him, they find their desire to stay there quickly diminishes and rarely stay for their full half hour. So for most of the day, there was at least one and often two computers open.
At one point, Crusty had some competition from Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, a relatively recent addition to our benign irritants gallery whose major claim to infame is his tendency to tell anyone who gets too close to him the mind-numbingly boring details of his geneal0gy research. (We make it a point never to engage him in conversation of any kind because he forcefully steers it back around to his favorite topic every single time.)
Gene got his computer a couple hours after Dave's first sign-in and I was glad to have him, because Gene can hog up the computer time better than most and has the added bonus of not stinking. Soon, another patron took the last computer and before long a kid came in and signed up for Crusty's. I let Crusty know he needed to get off, but by the time he actually got around to getting off the kid had left the building and I didn't technically have anyone waiting. I kept that bit of information to myself, though, and Crusty departed.
I had barely had time to clean up his crust and spritz down his chair with Febreeze when he returned and signed up again. By then, unfortunately, the other computer patron had also departed, leaving only Gene. And by the time I had another computer-competition-trifecta, I then had to bust Gene off.
Gene, while signing out, said something about possibly coming back later. I tried to get him to go ahead and sign up for another session right then. I was even willing to stand there and engage him in geneal0gy talk until his turn came up, but he decided he would go away for a bit first.
So for the rest of my workday, Crusty and his intense stench held sway over the computer hall and indeed the landing above it. I spent the day cursing the usual innanet crowders for being so disloyal to us and Crusty for officially ruining Febreeze's Linen & Sky scent.
Where the hell are our tried and true faithful? Why aren't they flocking to us in great numbers? (For it is only in great numbers that we will be able to stave off the evil!) I'll take nearly any of them, really, provided they're not stinky. Where is the Devil Twin Auxiliary League? Or the Devil Twins themselves?! I'd be willing to cut them some slack on fines if they'd just monopolize a couple of computers for a few hours for me. Where is Mr. B-Natural? Or Crazed Mom? Or Mr. Big Stupid? Or Kanji the Kid? Or The Dufus? Where are they? I'll take Mrs. Bellows or the Internet Neophyte, too, and will even show them how to load "the innanet."
God help me, I'll even take Parka's dumb ass back.
There! I said it! I said his name, have given him power and summoned him from the depths of whatever Stygian pit he's been trolling around for the past few blissful, Parka-Free months! Bring it on!!!
Monday, December 20, 2004
Christmas Par-Tay
Tonight was the "liberry's" Christmas Party, a day I look forward to
every year. Why? Cause frankly, we know how to do a work party right. We have
all the essentials: food, beer, more food, cookies and sitting around a
fire telling funny stories about our crazy patrons. What more could you
ask for?
Last year's party was brilliant in concept if not entirely in execution. Our theme for last year was to have a Comfort Food Party whereby we brought nothing but stick to your ribs, carb-laden comfort foods and then gorged ourselves stupid on them. Genius, no? The extra-genius part, or so we thought at the time, was that instead of exchanging gifts or doing Dirty Santa or something, we each baked several dozen cookies, one dozen for each staff-member, and exchanged those. We also baked an extra dozen which we would share around Mrs. A's home coffee table. Well, as you can read HERE, it didn't work out so good. After stuffing our gobs with mashed potatoes, fried chicken and mac & cheese we had no room or desire left whatsoever for cookie sampling. I think Mrs. A's dog ate more cookies than anyone else, but that was mostly because Mrs. B left her basket of gift cookies lying on the floor where the pooch could get at it. That, my friends, was one fat beagle.
This year we decided not to let our eyes get quite as big as our stomachs. We still did the cookie exchange part, but this year we went with a different theme. We thought about it long and hard and decided to do an appetizer party on the grounds that the best part of any meal is the appetizers. So tonight we had a nice little feast of appetizers. My wife and I brought both chicken curry dip and spinach artichoke dip along with the requisite Triscuits and little toasted bread slices on which to eat it. Other staff members brought cheesy dip, meatballs, bruchetta, crab dip, and, one of my all time favorites, Li'l Smokies. Our theory--which admittedly was on shaky ground to start with--is that by only eating appetizers off of small plates we would somehow have room left for cookies afterward. However, as we learned, you can stuff a LOT of appetizers on a small plate. And you can go back for more as many times as you want. So by the end of the meal, we were all still pretty stuffed, though not quite as much as last year.
Then we sat around Mrs. A's fireplace, passed Mrs. C's infant nephew around the room, kept the dog out of the food and ate cookies and cookies and cookies. Mrs. C made even made pecan pie bars just for me, as she knows they are my one true weakness--my Achilles heel, if you will. And yes, even in our carb-charged euphoria, we still managed to tell a few patron stories. Mostly old ones about The Dufus and about other similar computer patrons who refuse to log off when asked, even when the library is closing. It's a subject my wife has strong feelings about.
"I keep telling him, he'd have a lot less trouble with people if he would just scream at them a few times," she said. "Let someone stay on the computer a bit too long and just go back and scream `GET THE HELL OFF, NOW!' and that kind of thing would clear up quick."
The whole reason the subject of the Dufus came up was because Mrs. C's sister asked if Mrs. A's house--a house formerly owned by the Dufus's grandmother, I should add--was haunted. I said, "Well I know one former resident who you'd better hope never comes back to haunt it." That would be hell to have the Dufus as a ghost. For one thing, he'd spend all his time hogging up your computer, replying to his ghost spam and refusing to get off.
Last year's party was brilliant in concept if not entirely in execution. Our theme for last year was to have a Comfort Food Party whereby we brought nothing but stick to your ribs, carb-laden comfort foods and then gorged ourselves stupid on them. Genius, no? The extra-genius part, or so we thought at the time, was that instead of exchanging gifts or doing Dirty Santa or something, we each baked several dozen cookies, one dozen for each staff-member, and exchanged those. We also baked an extra dozen which we would share around Mrs. A's home coffee table. Well, as you can read HERE, it didn't work out so good. After stuffing our gobs with mashed potatoes, fried chicken and mac & cheese we had no room or desire left whatsoever for cookie sampling. I think Mrs. A's dog ate more cookies than anyone else, but that was mostly because Mrs. B left her basket of gift cookies lying on the floor where the pooch could get at it. That, my friends, was one fat beagle.
This year we decided not to let our eyes get quite as big as our stomachs. We still did the cookie exchange part, but this year we went with a different theme. We thought about it long and hard and decided to do an appetizer party on the grounds that the best part of any meal is the appetizers. So tonight we had a nice little feast of appetizers. My wife and I brought both chicken curry dip and spinach artichoke dip along with the requisite Triscuits and little toasted bread slices on which to eat it. Other staff members brought cheesy dip, meatballs, bruchetta, crab dip, and, one of my all time favorites, Li'l Smokies. Our theory--which admittedly was on shaky ground to start with--is that by only eating appetizers off of small plates we would somehow have room left for cookies afterward. However, as we learned, you can stuff a LOT of appetizers on a small plate. And you can go back for more as many times as you want. So by the end of the meal, we were all still pretty stuffed, though not quite as much as last year.
Then we sat around Mrs. A's fireplace, passed Mrs. C's infant nephew around the room, kept the dog out of the food and ate cookies and cookies and cookies. Mrs. C made even made pecan pie bars just for me, as she knows they are my one true weakness--my Achilles heel, if you will. And yes, even in our carb-charged euphoria, we still managed to tell a few patron stories. Mostly old ones about The Dufus and about other similar computer patrons who refuse to log off when asked, even when the library is closing. It's a subject my wife has strong feelings about.
"I keep telling him, he'd have a lot less trouble with people if he would just scream at them a few times," she said. "Let someone stay on the computer a bit too long and just go back and scream `GET THE HELL OFF, NOW!' and that kind of thing would clear up quick."
The whole reason the subject of the Dufus came up was because Mrs. C's sister asked if Mrs. A's house--a house formerly owned by the Dufus's grandmother, I should add--was haunted. I said, "Well I know one former resident who you'd better hope never comes back to haunt it." That would be hell to have the Dufus as a ghost. For one thing, he'd spend all his time hogging up your computer, replying to his ghost spam and refusing to get off.
Thursday, January 29, 2004
Notes on FRICKIN' Today!!
Sweet merciful crap! I think it's shit on the seat week at the liberry.
Minutes before I arrived at work today, the Dufus was in to use the computer. When he finished using the computer--an amazing enough feat in and of itself as I've rarely witnessed him leave the computer of his own volition before--he decided he'd use the bathroom. And use it he did!
When I came in, the entire computer hall and much of the stairwell smelled like burning matches. This is because Mrs. A had to brave the cloud of ass funk he left behind to light twenty matches in the bathroom to help cut the stench. And Mrs. C had to clean the seat afterwards from where the Dufus had shat upon it!!!
I know the Dufus wasn't responsible for yesterday's turd festival because he wasn't in the liberry at all. But today was definitely him. He's getting moved back to the active column of the Rogues Gallery for that repugnant behavior.
What is this world coming to that people can't check a toilet seat to make sure they haven't inadvertently soiled it after an ass blowout. AND WHY CAN'T THEY #$%&ING AIM THEIR KEISTERS IN THE BOWL IN THE FIRST PLACE?!!!
Buncha savages in this town!
Minutes before I arrived at work today, the Dufus was in to use the computer. When he finished using the computer--an amazing enough feat in and of itself as I've rarely witnessed him leave the computer of his own volition before--he decided he'd use the bathroom. And use it he did!
When I came in, the entire computer hall and much of the stairwell smelled like burning matches. This is because Mrs. A had to brave the cloud of ass funk he left behind to light twenty matches in the bathroom to help cut the stench. And Mrs. C had to clean the seat afterwards from where the Dufus had shat upon it!!!
I know the Dufus wasn't responsible for yesterday's turd festival because he wasn't in the liberry at all. But today was definitely him. He's getting moved back to the active column of the Rogues Gallery for that repugnant behavior.
What is this world coming to that people can't check a toilet seat to make sure they haven't inadvertently soiled it after an ass blowout. AND WHY CAN'T THEY #$%&ING AIM THEIR KEISTERS IN THE BOWL IN THE FIRST PLACE?!!!
Buncha savages in this town!
Friday, January 09, 2004
The Return of the Dufus
I may have been a bit premature in moving the Dufus from the Active to the Inactive category of the Liberry Rogues Gallery,
a couple weeks back. In he walked today, his eyes twinkling with the
unholy desire to hog a computer for several hours. As far as I know,
he's still there, as I got off at 1 p and didn't want to stick around to
see the carnage of any of us having to ask him to get off the computer.
I don't know if he's back for good or just overstayed his Christmas visit, but it would appear the Dufus has returned.
Joy.
I don't know if he's back for good or just overstayed his Christmas visit, but it would appear the Dufus has returned.
Joy.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Comfort Food Par-Tay
This past Monday we had our "liberry" Christmas party, featuring the previously heralded theme of Comfort Food & Cookies.
The food was fantastic, the company excellent and a glaze of carbohydrate-euphoria (i.e. "comfort") settled over everyone.
The cookie part supposedly involved us mixing and baking 8 dozen cookies to give to our fellow employees as gifts. I cheated and baked 8 dozen store-bought peanut butter cookies with mini Reese's cups in them instead.
And Mrs. J was able to make it too. She's doing much better, though she still can't get around as well as she'd like nor eat much.
My only complaint with the evening is that I couldn't eat much either. Not that I didn't try my best. It's just that my and my wife's digestive systems have now been altered by our near 3 month long stint on the Atkins program so that we, sadly, can no longer consume the mass quantity of food that we used to. I used to be able to put away two brimming-full plates of food and have room for desert. Now, I'm lucky if I have room to breathe after one plate. It's great for our health but is a massive bitch otherwise. When we cheat, we feel obligated to really do some damage, but we just can't now and it pisses us off. We weren't the only ones in that boat at the party, though. After our meal the entire staff sat around looking at all the plates of tasty cookies none of which we had any desire to eat because our brains were screaming "YOU'RE FULL, YOU FOOLS!"
After dinner, we all gathered in Mrs. A's living room where we took turns keeping her dog out of the cookies and telling each horror stories about problem patrons. (Ironic, in that Mrs. A's living room is the former living room of the Dufus's grandmother.) A couple of employees from libraries in neighboring towns joined us at the party and we were surprised at how many problem patrons we have in common, but it was valuable to share our most effective techniques for dealing with them.
The food was fantastic, the company excellent and a glaze of carbohydrate-euphoria (i.e. "comfort") settled over everyone.
The cookie part supposedly involved us mixing and baking 8 dozen cookies to give to our fellow employees as gifts. I cheated and baked 8 dozen store-bought peanut butter cookies with mini Reese's cups in them instead.
And Mrs. J was able to make it too. She's doing much better, though she still can't get around as well as she'd like nor eat much.
My only complaint with the evening is that I couldn't eat much either. Not that I didn't try my best. It's just that my and my wife's digestive systems have now been altered by our near 3 month long stint on the Atkins program so that we, sadly, can no longer consume the mass quantity of food that we used to. I used to be able to put away two brimming-full plates of food and have room for desert. Now, I'm lucky if I have room to breathe after one plate. It's great for our health but is a massive bitch otherwise. When we cheat, we feel obligated to really do some damage, but we just can't now and it pisses us off. We weren't the only ones in that boat at the party, though. After our meal the entire staff sat around looking at all the plates of tasty cookies none of which we had any desire to eat because our brains were screaming "YOU'RE FULL, YOU FOOLS!"
After dinner, we all gathered in Mrs. A's living room where we took turns keeping her dog out of the cookies and telling each horror stories about problem patrons. (Ironic, in that Mrs. A's living room is the former living room of the Dufus's grandmother.) A couple of employees from libraries in neighboring towns joined us at the party and we were surprised at how many problem patrons we have in common, but it was valuable to share our most effective techniques for dealing with them.
Friday, December 19, 2003
Dawn of the Dufus Part III
When the Dufus wasn't lobbying for a job with
us, he was plenty busy being a smarmy little turd-blossom on a day to
day basis. His interactions with library staff, or indeed anyone else,
were peppered with his usual name-droppings. It was as if he could not
exist without letting everybody know that he has had some degree of
interaction with a few people whose names we might recognize and is
therefore worthy of recognition himself. And anyone who came within
twenty feet of him got their own personal copy of his lone article about
the library. (I once saw him on the street corner, promising a passerby
whose aquaintance he had just made a copy of that most blessed work.)
And because he's obviously such an enormously important individual, library rules like time limits on the patron computers obviously don't apply to him. With most patrons, all you have to do is let them know their time is up and someone is waiting for their computer and you walk away, affording them the time to wrap up what they're doing and log off. With the Dufus, the ONLY way to get him to get off a computer was to go back and tell him his time was up and then stand there like the Colossus at Rhodes, giving him the stank eye until he actually got off. If you didn't, he would immediately start a new and lengthy e-mail as soon as you stepped away, and would often try to start one while you stood there waiting.
And what was so all-fired important that he just HAD to write just one last e-mail? Normally, I wouldn't know because I don't make it a habit to pry into what sort of activities our patrons are up to on the net. But since I was usually the guy who had to stand there giving him the stank eye, I sussed it out pretty quick.
Was the Dufus, perhaps, writing to a grant agency, pleading with them for library funds? No.
Was the Dufus corresponding with friends back West? Oh, no, my friends, no.
The Dufus was, in fact, REPLYING TO HIS SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's right. The Dufus read each and every e-mail he was sent, spam or not, and replied to all of it. Never mind that most spam can't be replied to, the Dufus tried it anyway. And would tell you about it!!! In great detail!!!!
"George W.'s office just sent me an e-mail asking for a campaign contribution," he said, referring to an obvious mailing-list spawned e-note. "They want $20,000. Well, I'm writing them back and tell them what I think of the way they're running the country right now. And I'm not going to send them anything."
He also enjoyed trying to discuss current events with you, but kept twisting the events around to suggest he was actively involved in them.
"You know, it's a sad day that Arnold Schwarzeneggar was elected governor of California," he once said. Then he added, "Well, I might go to the inaugural ball, but I'm not making any donations."
Now why would a guy who supposedly has all this money that everyone keeps wanting him to give them have any need to hog up the patron computers at a public library? Couldn't he just buy his own computer and while away the hours at his parents' house replying to all his spam until his heart was content?
All his computer shennanigans were irritating enough, but the Dufus usually chose to do them dangerously close to closing time. He'd pop in for a computer at a half an hour til close (surpassing even Mr. Big Stupid in inconvenient computer usage) or less. You would think that telling someone "We're closed now" would be more of an incentive to get off the computer than merely saying "Your time is up." Alas, it was not the case. I would warn him 15 minutes before closing that we would be closing in 15 minutes. Then, 10 minutes. Then, 5 minutes. Then, we're closed. Then, no, really, we are closed. Then, I'm not kidding, we truly are closed as of five minutes ago. Then, I'm locking the door and turning off the lights. You need to be on the other side of it when I do.
And while I would have been well within my rights and posted computer policy to just shut the damned computer off in his face, I've always chosen to try the polite route first. Again, though, the only effective method was to just go Colossus on him and stand there til he got off. (Or hit him with a chair, though I only fantasized about that option.)
It seems the Dufus may no longer be bothering us so regularly. A couple of months ago we heard he took a position with the board of directors of a foundation established by a half-way famous long dead WV author in said author's former home town. We considered calling them up to warn them but figured if they hadn't been able to see through his smarm-infested weasel nature they probably deserve him.
His position there may or may not have gone well for him. As of Friday, Mrs. A informed me that the Dufus had moved out of the area entirely. He hasn't returned to the West Coast, but is at least a comfortable distance away in a neighboring state where he is probably even now plaguing library assistants.
The Dufus, 2003-2003, Inactive Member of the Liberry Rogues Gallery.
And because he's obviously such an enormously important individual, library rules like time limits on the patron computers obviously don't apply to him. With most patrons, all you have to do is let them know their time is up and someone is waiting for their computer and you walk away, affording them the time to wrap up what they're doing and log off. With the Dufus, the ONLY way to get him to get off a computer was to go back and tell him his time was up and then stand there like the Colossus at Rhodes, giving him the stank eye until he actually got off. If you didn't, he would immediately start a new and lengthy e-mail as soon as you stepped away, and would often try to start one while you stood there waiting.
And what was so all-fired important that he just HAD to write just one last e-mail? Normally, I wouldn't know because I don't make it a habit to pry into what sort of activities our patrons are up to on the net. But since I was usually the guy who had to stand there giving him the stank eye, I sussed it out pretty quick.
Was the Dufus, perhaps, writing to a grant agency, pleading with them for library funds? No.
Was the Dufus corresponding with friends back West? Oh, no, my friends, no.
The Dufus was, in fact, REPLYING TO HIS SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's right. The Dufus read each and every e-mail he was sent, spam or not, and replied to all of it. Never mind that most spam can't be replied to, the Dufus tried it anyway. And would tell you about it!!! In great detail!!!!
"George W.'s office just sent me an e-mail asking for a campaign contribution," he said, referring to an obvious mailing-list spawned e-note. "They want $20,000. Well, I'm writing them back and tell them what I think of the way they're running the country right now. And I'm not going to send them anything."
He also enjoyed trying to discuss current events with you, but kept twisting the events around to suggest he was actively involved in them.
"You know, it's a sad day that Arnold Schwarzeneggar was elected governor of California," he once said. Then he added, "Well, I might go to the inaugural ball, but I'm not making any donations."
Now why would a guy who supposedly has all this money that everyone keeps wanting him to give them have any need to hog up the patron computers at a public library? Couldn't he just buy his own computer and while away the hours at his parents' house replying to all his spam until his heart was content?
All his computer shennanigans were irritating enough, but the Dufus usually chose to do them dangerously close to closing time. He'd pop in for a computer at a half an hour til close (surpassing even Mr. Big Stupid in inconvenient computer usage) or less. You would think that telling someone "We're closed now" would be more of an incentive to get off the computer than merely saying "Your time is up." Alas, it was not the case. I would warn him 15 minutes before closing that we would be closing in 15 minutes. Then, 10 minutes. Then, 5 minutes. Then, we're closed. Then, no, really, we are closed. Then, I'm not kidding, we truly are closed as of five minutes ago. Then, I'm locking the door and turning off the lights. You need to be on the other side of it when I do.
And while I would have been well within my rights and posted computer policy to just shut the damned computer off in his face, I've always chosen to try the polite route first. Again, though, the only effective method was to just go Colossus on him and stand there til he got off. (Or hit him with a chair, though I only fantasized about that option.)
It seems the Dufus may no longer be bothering us so regularly. A couple of months ago we heard he took a position with the board of directors of a foundation established by a half-way famous long dead WV author in said author's former home town. We considered calling them up to warn them but figured if they hadn't been able to see through his smarm-infested weasel nature they probably deserve him.
His position there may or may not have gone well for him. As of Friday, Mrs. A informed me that the Dufus had moved out of the area entirely. He hasn't returned to the West Coast, but is at least a comfortable distance away in a neighboring state where he is probably even now plaguing library assistants.
The Dufus, 2003-2003, Inactive Member of the Liberry Rogues Gallery.
Dawn of The Dufus Part II
Following the Dufus's miraculous return to town, he had become desperate to find some sort of use for his oh so obvious talents in areas of publicity and fund-raising.
Can ya guess who he chose to inflict himself on?
You see, our library board is in the process of raising money to build a new library. And while they have already raised 40 percent of the $3 million needed to start the building process (all without the Dufus's help, I might add) the Dufus felt we were in dire need of his P.R. services and has taken every opportunity afforded him (we quickly learned to stop affording him opportunities if we can at all help it) to sing his own praises in the art of fundraising and publicity and drop a few dozen important names while doing it.
It turns out the Dufus had been hogging our computers for two afternoons to write an article about the library itself, which he hoped to peddle to one or more of our local papers and use as a big weasely foot in the door while stumping for a job to our board.
In the following weeks, he was in a constant state of panic trying to get a meeting with our head Librarian, Mrs. A, in order to discuss his sprawling and unsolicited plans for a marketing campaign. Mrs. A, meanwhile, was in a panic to avoid the Dufus at all costs. Through a series of incredible coincidences, he always seemed to come in to see her just when she was headed out the door on important errands.
It also didn't help that Mrs. A had recently purchased and was living in the former home of the Dufus's grandmother. So not only did he stalk Mrs. A for a job interview but also to beg permission to come by and see the house he spent so much time in as a Dufusy little whelp.
Seeing that he was never able to sync schedules with Mrs. A, the Dufus took to sitting in on as many library board meetings as possible. This is completely cool, as the meetings are open to the public, but the Dufus used the time to continue singing his own praises, listing off congressmen he's friendly with, actors and socialites he personally knows and famous authors who regularly throw him birthday parties, (though I somehow question whether Homer Hickam actually threw the Dufus's weasel-ass a birthday party, being as how the only reason Hickam was in the state in the first place was for a Rocket Boys reunion down in what's left of Coalwood, a party the Dufus no doubt crashed in the first place). The Dufus also went on at length about the tremendous amount of fundraising he did for a library in California and how he could do the same for us. The board actually researched this point. It turned out that the Dufus's part of the fundraising was a miniscule portion of a much bigger project involving thousands of other people, in which he mattered very little.
As you might guess, our board was not at all impressed by the Dufus and his name droppings, particularly since one member of the board already IS a former congressman and another is the heir to the fortune of a major toiletries manufacturing corporation, a lady the Pope might come to for a loan.
They were equally unimpressed a few weeks later, when they heard that the Dufus paid a visit to the state library commission and introduced himself to one of the state officials as the new P.R. man for our library's building project. The official hadn't realized we'd chosen anyone for the job yet, and phoned us up to inquire about it. Mrs. A informed them that we hadn't chosen anyone, but we now had a permanent candidate for the DO NOT HIRE list.
(To Be Concluded)
Can ya guess who he chose to inflict himself on?
You see, our library board is in the process of raising money to build a new library. And while they have already raised 40 percent of the $3 million needed to start the building process (all without the Dufus's help, I might add) the Dufus felt we were in dire need of his P.R. services and has taken every opportunity afforded him (we quickly learned to stop affording him opportunities if we can at all help it) to sing his own praises in the art of fundraising and publicity and drop a few dozen important names while doing it.
It turns out the Dufus had been hogging our computers for two afternoons to write an article about the library itself, which he hoped to peddle to one or more of our local papers and use as a big weasely foot in the door while stumping for a job to our board.
In the following weeks, he was in a constant state of panic trying to get a meeting with our head Librarian, Mrs. A, in order to discuss his sprawling and unsolicited plans for a marketing campaign. Mrs. A, meanwhile, was in a panic to avoid the Dufus at all costs. Through a series of incredible coincidences, he always seemed to come in to see her just when she was headed out the door on important errands.
It also didn't help that Mrs. A had recently purchased and was living in the former home of the Dufus's grandmother. So not only did he stalk Mrs. A for a job interview but also to beg permission to come by and see the house he spent so much time in as a Dufusy little whelp.
Seeing that he was never able to sync schedules with Mrs. A, the Dufus took to sitting in on as many library board meetings as possible. This is completely cool, as the meetings are open to the public, but the Dufus used the time to continue singing his own praises, listing off congressmen he's friendly with, actors and socialites he personally knows and famous authors who regularly throw him birthday parties, (though I somehow question whether Homer Hickam actually threw the Dufus's weasel-ass a birthday party, being as how the only reason Hickam was in the state in the first place was for a Rocket Boys reunion down in what's left of Coalwood, a party the Dufus no doubt crashed in the first place). The Dufus also went on at length about the tremendous amount of fundraising he did for a library in California and how he could do the same for us. The board actually researched this point. It turned out that the Dufus's part of the fundraising was a miniscule portion of a much bigger project involving thousands of other people, in which he mattered very little.
As you might guess, our board was not at all impressed by the Dufus and his name droppings, particularly since one member of the board already IS a former congressman and another is the heir to the fortune of a major toiletries manufacturing corporation, a lady the Pope might come to for a loan.
They were equally unimpressed a few weeks later, when they heard that the Dufus paid a visit to the state library commission and introduced himself to one of the state officials as the new P.R. man for our library's building project. The official hadn't realized we'd chosen anyone for the job yet, and phoned us up to inquire about it. Mrs. A informed them that we hadn't chosen anyone, but we now had a permanent candidate for the DO NOT HIRE list.
(To Be Concluded)
Dawn of the Dufus Part I
I've had to move another member of our Liberry Rogues Gallery from the Active column to the Inactive column. You might think losing another active member was a setback. However, in the case of this patron, it's good news since we liked him almost as much as we like Chester the (potential) Molester. Not a damn lot.
I am speaking of none other than The Dufus.
Allow me to tell his tale.
I first encountered the Dufus after coming in one Thursday afternoon to hear the library staff complaining about some jerk who had refused to get off one of the patron computers for most of the afternoon. Our computer policy is that each patron gets a half hour on one of our three computers and after that, if someone else is waiting to get on one, they have to relinquish it. If no one's waiting, they can stay til someone is. This guy, however, had been told multiple times by multiple staff members that his half hour was up and he needed to get off--information he chose to ignore. This went on for over three hours, with various staff members popping back to ask him to get off every ten minutes or so. Finally, one of our librarians went back and threatened to turn the computer off in his face, causing him to lose all changes in the document he was working on. Only then did he reluctantly get off. As soon as another computer came open, he was back at it again.
The next day the Dufus came back for Part II of this behavior. The first time his allotted half hour ran out, I went back to his computer and politely said, "Excuse me, sir, but we have a patron waiting..." nodding toward the computer to indicate what they were waiting for.
"For meeee?" he said.
Now, the tone of his question did NOT say, Are they waiting ON me? No. His tone said, Are they waiting FOR me? It was exactly as if he thought there was someone up front who had heard he was in town and had rushed right down to the Liberry to meet the fabled Dufus and shake his hand.
Ten minutes later, I had to go back to the Dufus to again alert him that we had other patrons waiting.
"For meeee?" he repeated, in exactly the same tone as before.
"No, ON you," I corrected. "You need to log off. Now."
Why, you might ask, would someone think so highly of themselves as to actually believe someone might be waiting FOR them? Ahhh, therein lies the rub.
The Dufus, I later learned, comes from local old money and grew up in the area but has spent the last several years living on the West Coast. To hear him tell it--and he takes great joy in telling it--when he was back on the West Coast, he was a minor deity and part time journalist who spent his days hobnobbing with the rich and famous, dear and trusted friend to all of them. He's quite accustomed therefore to people falling all over him, so it would have come as no surprise that someone was waiting FOR him. After all, surely EVERYONE had heard how the Dufus had miraculously returned from the West Coast to grace his home town with his presence (and move back in with his parents).
You only THINK I'm laying it on thick here. I promise you, I am not.
(To Be Continued)
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