Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness I: Sad Sack ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 3)

There are four patrons who I had great hopes would one day expose themselves as rogues, or at least rise to the position of benign irritants. Alas, they have not yet managed and remain footnote characters with little story potential. They have become the Quattuorvirate of Lameness. Their first member is Sad Sack...

Sad Sack was named because he looks exactly like the old comic character of the same name, albeit with about 30 years and 30 pounds under his belt. He's too young to have been in WWII himself, but perhaps there is still a connection to the original character.

Poor Sad Sack. After he was finally discharged from the Army (still at the rank of private) and was able to escape the gaze of the irate Sgt. Circle, he quickly found that he was incapable of maneuvering the perils of life without the rigidity of military structure. He wound up going off the rails and became a drifter, traveling from state to state. Eventually he made his way to West Virginia, where he remembered he was far too lazy to try and hike over all those mountains. So he put down stakes, married himself local gal and eventually produced a son who grew up to resemble his father in both look and manner.

The son went on to haunt the streets of small towns, doing odd jobs and occasionally inquiring at the local "liberry" about obscure medical conditions he thought he might have.

Sad Sack Jr. is today a rare sight.

Red Alert ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 2)

The man known as Red Alert exists in every library across the globe. He's that guy; the one who, perhaps, used to be smooth with the ladies, back when he was in his 20s; the one who, perhaps, is recently divorced and therefore eager to begin distributing some of that smooth stylin' once again, no matter how inappropriate; the one who, perhaps, doesn't realize that what had been smooth stylin' in 1976 has now become an 8-mile stretch of poorly patched, pothole-speckled road, abandoned by all except similar creatures of his ilk and which sounds really creepy coming out of the face of a 53 year old man, particularly when aimed at girls half his age.

Yep. That guy.

In the late days of last century and the early days of this one, Red Alert enjoyed distributing his particular brand of "smoothness" to certain female members of our staff, i.e. the very married Mrs. B, the then unmarried Mrs. C, and our former weekend warrior Miss. D. At the height of Red Alert's notoriety, Mrs. C and Miss D were both less than half his age. Mrs. B was closer to his age, but, again, very married. This mattered not to Red Alert, who seemed to fancy himself quite the ladies man, and he would spend increasing amounts of time trying to chat with them whenever he could. And let me be clear, Red Alert was never exactly offensive or lurid in his words with them, so there was nothing Mrs. A could kick him out about. However, it was evident from his manner that he was on a fishing expedition; he knew he wasn't necessarily going to catch any fish but he could enjoy the scenery while he tried. He seemed to enjoy the raport he clearly thought he had with the ladies—a raport which they quickly began to discourage by becoming intensely busy with official "liberry" projects whenever he came around.

And that's how Red Alert attained his monicker, because "Red Alert!" was the warning call that used to ring out from the staff whenever we saw him coming. As soon as the warning was sounded, there followed a sudden exodus of Mrs. B and Mrs. C, if there were other staff members who could run the circ-desk. If not, it was basically a coin toss as to who would be left behind to deal with him and who would escape to the safety of Mrs. A's office.

Early on, Red Alert used to arrive in his distinctive hooptymobile, but I imagine he eventually noticed that that the only female staff-member this tended to net him was our sexagenarian "liberry" ass. Mrs. J. I deduce this because soon Red Alert began arriving exclusively on foot. Unfortunately for him, we were quite vigilant and as soon as we spied him prowling up the gravity hill we'd shout "Red Alert!" and the ladies would head for the bunker.

Miss D, however, was not to be spared. She was the lone weekend warrior "liberry" ass., after all, and had nowhere to escape whenever he lurked by on a Saturday. Thus, she was the first of the staff to get officially asked out by Red Alert. Quite wisely, she turned him down, but that didn't put him off his game. He was a regular weekend visitor.

I've often wondered if Red Alert was half the reason I was hired in the first place. Mrs. J, the usual defensive shield, only worked in the early half of the day and Red Alert learned that he could pin down at least one of his quarry if he arrived in the afternoons. Once I was on staff, though, both Mrs. C and Mrs. B could go to ground and wait him out, leaving me at the desk to disappoint him. Red Alert didn't hang around to talk to me, other than occasionally dropping skin-crawling little phrases, such as, "Only us roosters here, today, eh?"

In such cases, he would stroll on past the circ-desk and head upstairs to the periodicals to leaf through the daily newspapers. Unfortunately, Mrs. A's office is right by the periodicals section, which trapped the ladies in that office until Red Alert had finally moved on.

Months after I'd joined the staff, Red Alert came in one night after the ladies had gone home for the evening. He went upstairs to read papers for a bit, then left the building. Soon after, an attractive regular female patron in her mid-40s came downstairs to the circ-desk and asked if I knew the identity of the man who'd been upstairs reading newspapers. I said I did, adding, "What did he do?" I was fearful that he'd exposed himself to her or otherwise offended her, yet also hopeful, because if he had we could finally kick him out.

The lady smiled and said, "He hit on me. He asked me out."

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said.

"No, no. I told him I was married," she said. Then she smiled again. "It's just been a while since someone hit on me, like that. It was kind of nice to be noticed."

Score one for Red Alert, I guess.

Eventually, Red Alert left the area. The story that we heard was that there was some sort of incident at his place of employment. And while we never heard the details, we can certainly speculate.

The Old Devil Twins ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 1)

We've covered the The New Devil Twins and The New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids, but I haven't really given mention to the original Devil Twins who inspired that next generation.

The Devil Twins (no relation to Mrs. Carol Satan) were two nine-year-old boys who were also, as their name suggests, twins. Not long after I joined the staff, they paid us a relatively tame visit, but I was warned about them after their departure. I was also warned about their mother, who I was told could be an extreme pain to deal with, particularly when it came to the behavior of the twins. The boys were notorious for loud, obnoxious behavior and for trashing our children's room. Their mother was, in turn, notorious for being blind to her children's antics and for defending them to the point of delusion.

The major incident, which was cited by Mrs. C and Mrs. B in their warning, was a visit months earlier during which the Devil Twins began loudly trashing the children's room right in front of their mother. Mrs. C said she kept waiting for Devil Mom to notice their antics and tell them to stop, but she made no effort to do so, preferring to sit in the children's room and read while the chaos bloomed around her. When Mrs. C fingally approached the boys and asked them to settle down, Devil Mom finally looked up and then flew into a rage. Mrs. C tried to explain to Devil Mom that her children were actively running around, knocking books from shelves and disturbing other patrons with their raised voices. Devil Mom countered that the only reason Mrs. C was pointing this out was because the boys were black.

"Wait... They're black?" I asked at this point in the telling of the story.

"That's what I said!" Mrs. B exclaimed. None of us had even realized the Devil Twins were of African-American descent. Sure, they were slightly darker than your average white boys, but their mom was white and they looked pretty Caucasian otherwise, so how were we to know? Turns out, Devil Mom was actually their adoptive mom, but we didn't know that until later. Even if we had known it, though, I would probably have guessed the kids were Brazilian.

Mrs. C had to assure the Devil Mom that our request that her boys stop tearing up the children's room had not been made due to any race-based motivation, but were made instead due to our concern that her boys were tearing up the children's room. Devil Mom evidently didn't buy this, for she gathered up her boys, swore she would never again set foot in the building again and stormed out.

Devil Mom's memory must have been pretty short, because she returned within weeks, twins in tow. She kept her race-baiting to a minimum thereafter, but her children's antics grew no better.

Now, most people would probably chalk their rambunctious behavior up to the childish exuberance of a pair of energetic nine year-olds, but not me. As far as I'm concerned, they were evil geniuses in the making, for I witnessed them working their mischief as a team. During a visit in late October of 2002, I noted how one Devil Twin kept Devil Mom occupied in the children's room, allowing the other to repeatedly sneak up to the Halloween candy basket we kept at the circ-desk, taking candy from it, then rushing back to tag out, allowing the other brother his turn at the basket. I watched them do this until each and every piece was gone. I didn't intervene, figuring Devil Mom had pretty much baked that casserole of deception all on her own. After they left, it took me ten minutes to find where they'd stashed all the wrappers, deep in the children's magazine display.

A more amusing encounter with them happened one evening when Devil Mom signed the twins up to use the internet. Because they were under 12, our policy stated that Devil Mom would need to stay with them at all times to keep an eye on their computing. Unfortunately, the only two computers I had were the one in the children's room and the little computer by the stairs in our computer/reference hall, which meant she had to keep going back and forth between the two, checking up on them. After about 20 minutes, I heard a sharp cry from the computer hall, followed by the sound of rolly chairs rolling and feet stomping in the direction of the circ-desk.

Devil Mom rushed up, eyes wide and said, "I think I'm going to need your help. I'm afraid there's some," looks left and right, then whispers, "pornography... on the screen." This wasn't exactly surprising, as in those days we didn't have filtering software and were regularly dealing with pornographic email pop ups.

I followed Devil Mom back to the computer hall to find her kid's screen was turned off. She covered her child's eyes and pressed the power switch. When the monitor warmed up, there on the screen was a topless Jennifer Aniston.

"Ah," I said.

Devil Mom explained that her son claimed he was only looking for a Garfield the Cat website and had typed that into a search engine when Jennifer suddenly appeared. Devil Mom, having no computer skills, had no idea how to get rid of Jennifer, so she'd switched off the screen and run for help. I closed down the browser, rebooted the computer to clear the history and logged it back on for them.

Minutes after I returned to the circ-desk there came another sharp cry from the computer hall. I headed on back before being asked to find Jennifer and "the girls" staring perkily out of the screen once again and Devil Mom's hand clapped tightly around the kid's eyes. Yeah, that first time might have been an accident, but the kid was clearly a quick study. Mom decided it was time to leave.

From what I understand, the Devil Family left the area not too long after that. It took us a while to realize we hadn't seen them recently, what with being too busy enjoying all the books that were remaining on the shelves and the sound of quiet. However, nature being abhorant of a vacuum, and all, we were soon sent a new set of Devil Twins to plug the hole. Their adventures continue.

"Lost" Rogues Week

When I first set up the Tales from the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery, most of the initial Rogues I included were patrons with whom I had already had encounters or whom I knew I would one day be able to relate stories about. Granted, some of them had not beheaved at all badly at the time, but I could sense their inner-potential toward roguishness and stocked them in advance. In most cases, they rose to the challenge. Others, however, disappeared forever the moment I added them to the list, or had disappeared prior even to the composition of the list and never returned as I hoped they might. I've told tales about most of them anyway, but there are a few loose ends left to be tied up, not to mention long hinted-at secret-identities that, as yet, remain secret.

That being the case, let's cover and uncover those "lost" inactive rogues and unchronicled sundry others.

Master P's Theatre

One of our frequent and favorite patrons is Master P. No, not the rapper, but the sensei at the local Tai Kwan Do dojo. He comes in, several times a week to use the internet and do lots of faxing. Sometimes he doesn't bring enough cash for his faxing, or brings bills too large for us to break, so we let him by and he always pays us later in the day or the following day. He doesn't speak English very well and often doesn't understand us on first try, but he's a good guy. We like him. We do not, however, like his phone.

Master P's phone—a Razor—has not actually been a problem in the past. He's used it only occasionally, usually to confirm that the faxes he's sending have gone through, speaking in Korean to whomever is receiving his information. In fact, the only problem we've had with his phone was when he accidentally left it at the circ desk today.

Initially, his phone behaved itself. We put a note on it indicating that it belonged to Master P and set it aside, assuming he'd come back for it as soon as he found it was missing. After an hour or so, I decided to phone the dojo to let him know. No one answered at the dojo, but as classes don't usually start until after school, this wasn't too surprising. I decided to try again later and, barring an answer, could even walk it down to him at the dojo.

Mid-way through the afternoon, the Razor came to life and scared the hell out of everyone by blaring an incredibly loud house-music ring-tone at us. It was disorientingly loud, the kind of ring-tone that sets your teeth on edge and yet makes you want to dance a little at the same time. By the second time it went off, I found myself chanting along to the beat, "Oont. Oont. Oont. Oont." And it was still annoying from two rooms away. Who needs a phone THAT loud?

At five, the rest of the staff had left for the day and it was just me and the phone. I'd be minding my own business, going about my job, when when it would suddenly roar to life, startling me and causing me to curse as I flung myself at it to muffle its speaker with my hands. I imagined Master P had discovered it was missing and was phoning it repeatedly, hoping to hear where he had laid it down at the dojo. I tried to find a way to turn it down, or, better yet, turn it off, but the Razor would not give up its secrets to me. Eventually, I did find a way to switch it to vibrate mode, after which it would buzz loudly every couple of minutes or so.

Only after it had rung six or seven times did it occur to me to look at the incoming number. It matched the number for the dojo itself. So I picked up our phone and gave the dojo a call. Master P answered and was happy to hear that we had his phone. He said he'd be up for it right away. True to his word he arrived minutes later.

I tried to explain the whole business of attempting to phone him earlier in the day, figuring he wouldn't be back in until classes in the afternoon, figuring he was trying to call his own phone to locate it and then deciding to give him another call. Throughout my explanaion, Master P looked at me like I was speaking English. When I finished, he said, "Thank you very much," in measured tones, took his devil phone and departed.

Is it wrong to lick...

...the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows copy that we received in advance?

Really?

Unethical?

Unhygenic?

Aw, c'mon! It's not like I read the ending, or anything. In fact, I didn't even crack the covers of either of the two copies of the book we have on hand. I just figured that if I licked one of them, I'd likely be the only person in the entire world licking that particular title, a feat I daresay millions of children would sell their younger siblings into servitude in order to trade places with me to achieve. The Power! THE POWER!!!

Okay, so I didn't really lick it. But I did touch it. And I thought about licking it. And I do plan to abuse my library employee status by being the first to check out the book on CD, which I may also yet lick, as it's shrink-wrapped and stuff. However, I will play fair and wait until Saturday to do so. (The checking out part, that is. The licking, I'll probably get to later today.)

Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #84

SETTING: My "liberry." A gentleman enters the building and approaches the circ-desk looking very hopeful.

ME— Can I help you?

MAN— I'm looking for marriage b0nds.

ME— Marriage b0nds?

MAN— Marriage b0nds.

ME— Um... Marriage b0nds?

MAN— Yes. When people got married, they used to have to get marriage b0nds. Do you have them here? (He gestures vaguely in the direction of our closed case collection of historical books and geneal0gy material.)

ME— So, we're talking historical marriage b0nds?

MAN— Yeah, that's it. I've seen them collected in a book before.

ME— I've never ever heard of us having those. My thought is that the historical s0ciety will be the ones to have them, but let me ask.

(I turn to Mrs. C, who is conversing with Mrs. B. She looks up.)

ME— Marriage b0nds.

MRS. C— Marriage b0nds?

ME— Marriage b0nds.

MAN— Yes. People used to have to get marriage b0nds when they married. I've seen them in a book before. They said you would have it.

ME— "They" say a lot of things.

(There was a pause at this point and I thought I detected an annoyed expression cross the man's face.)

MRS. C— That's not something we have here. You might try the historical s0ciety.

MAN— Okay.

I don't know if it was intentional or if it was simply due to the high winds we had, but the front door was slammed as the man exited it.

The incident above, among many others, prompted our entire staff to take a group tour of historical s0ciety's collection to see just what they had on hand. We thought it might also give their staff the chance to tell us how pissed off they were with us for sending people over for all the stuff we don't have for years and years. They said they didn't mind at all. After all, they tend to have all the stuff we've been sending people over for. They also charge admission for access to their collection and have probably raked in quite a bit of money due to our efforts.

And, yes, they did have a book of marriage b0nds.

Postcards From My Coffee Table

I'd kind of half-noticed this little guy sitting on my wife's Hallmark calendar, atop our coffee table, for 15 minutes before I realized it was a little guy. My brain said stray leaf that fell off the houseplants, which was exactly what my brain was supposed to think, instead of, hey, there's a fuzzy bug, smash it! Then I touched the calendar, the moth's fuzzy little legs moved and I stood back amazed.

If you click on the image, you can see that the calendar he's on has a flower on the cover. I imagine he was just trying to blend in.

Some people would argue this is a perfect example of the wonders of evolution. Others would argue it's an example of intelligent (divine) design. I'd say it's both.

Mousse Trap

On Friday, Mrs. C announced that she had ordered the staff a chocolate mousse cake from a local bakery.

"Who's birthday?" I asked, for we'd ordered a similar cake for Ms. M's birthday not long ago.

"No one's," Mrs. C said. She explained that she just wanted some and thought the rest of us would too and it was cheaper to order a whole cake than individual slices.

The cake arrived and was a dark, rich-looking, frozen disc of beauty. That is, it would have been if I cared at all for chocolate. I've actually come a long way over the years to get beyond my former hatred of chocolate. As a kid, I used to shun most anything to do with chocolate, but have mellowed as time has gone on. Chocolate and I don't get along too well, but we have mutual friends, such as peanut butter and caramel. I can tolerate the presence of chocolate when either of the other two are around. Or, if chocolate is mixed into other things, such as cake, milk, ice cream or Oreo cookies. Generally speaking, though, I just don't seek it out in its purest form. A Hershey's Kiss is about the most I care to eat in a sitting. And while I had to admit that the chocolate mousse, still frozen in its box, was very nice-looking, I really didn't want to break my recently restarted shunning of sugar unless it was for something sweet I truly loved. I decided to take my piece home to the wife.

"WhaaAAAAt? You don't LOOOOOVE chocolate?!" Ms. M stammered between bites of her own mousse. Her tone suggested that psychological counseling might be in order.

"WhAAAAAt?!" Ms. S said, astounded at what she'd overheard from her fellow former newbie greenhorn.

These were typical, yet actually restrained, reactions of "chocolate" people to my non-chocolate-loving status. Usually once "chocolate" people calm down from the shock of having their world-view jostled, they begin to try and convince you that you are delusional and wrong to dislike chocolate. They say things like, "That's only because you've never tried good chocolate before," and, "Oh, I know some chocolate that would make you love it." The greenhorns refrained, but I could tell they were thinkin' it.

After a few minutes of dedicated chewing, Ms. S, her face alight with a chocolate-rush, took her still not quite empty plate over to the trash can and dropped it in. Ms. M started to scream, then caught herself, at the wasted three bites of mousse now in the bin.

"What are you doing?!" Ms. M said, accusations of traitorous behavior clearly dancing behind her eyes.

"I'm full," Ms. S said. "I couldn't eat any more chocolate."

"You know, we have a fridge," I said. "You could have saved it for later."

A look of regret crossed Ms. S's face. Clearly she'd not considered this and was probably now debating how much shit she would have to take from us if she fished her dessert out of the trash can. After a few seconds, she shrugged and said, "No, I'm done."

"Thank God she didn't get it out of the trash," Ms. M said, still working on her own mousse. "I would have died!"

"Hell, I would have eaten it," I said.

Ms. M laughed, as though I were kidding.

"I'm serious. I've eaten worse."

I then told them a story...

When I was a lad of five, my father and I temporarily lived on my Papaw's farm in south Mississippi for a few months, before moving away to Starkville. One day, while in town, a friend of my dad's, who ran a gas station in Waynesboro, gave me a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket full of Super Bubble Bubble gum. It was one of the greatest gifts a kid could be given and I was in gum chewing heaven for weeks, going through multiple pieces in a day. Around this time, I learned how to blow bubbles with my gum and tried to practice this skill on a near constant basis. I wasn't great at it, though, and would occasionally drop my gum on the floor, or launch it across the room, in my attempts to learn. Still, I had so many pieces I could always get a fresh one, so it didn't really matter.

After several weeks, I was finally down to my very last piece of Super Bubble. I was determined to make it last. I started chewing it after breakfast, took it out for lunch, and was prepared to continue chewing on into the afternoon and hopefully beyond supper. That afternoon, while following Papaw around on his late afternoon chores, I attempted to blow a bubble and the gum shot out of my mouth and landed on the ground inside the barn. I don't know how much you know about barns, but this particular one housed cows and its dirt floor was actually composed of dried, powdered cow manure. Not wanting to give up on my final piece of gum for the foreseeable future, I picked it up, examined the grains of dried cow poop attached to it, brushed them off as best I could and popped that gum back in my mouth.

When I finished my tale, Ms. M was staring back at me with a look of pure revulsion on her face.

"Enjoy that chocolate," I told her.

Mr. Butts Shows his Ass

I've never before written of our patron, Mr. Harold Butts. Never had cause to, really. Oh, sure, he's one of our most frequent patrons, visiting us on at least a weekly basis, and is therefore a common sight to be found. And sure, some of my fellow employees have warned me in the past that he can be difficult to deal with and is known for occasionally freaking out on the staff. However, in the five plus years I've worked here, I'd never experienced the slightest bit of ill-behavior from him myself. That is, until recently.

"Where are all your Michners?" Mr. Butts asked in a fairly demanding tone. He was standing in front of the M-section of our hardback general fiction shelves, in our main room downstairs. I looked up from my shelving across the room and could clearly see there were only two or three books by James Michner in that section. The situation struck me as one with a fairly obvious answer, so I gave it to him.

"Well, if they're not on the shelf there, chances are they're checked out."

"Checked out?!" Mr. Butts said, irritation thick. "You're saying all your James Michners are checked out?"

"I can't say that for certain," I said slowly, "but if they aren't on the shelf, chances are pretty good that they are checked out. I can check."

Mr. Butts became quite angry. "I can't believe all your Michners are checked out. I just can't believe that!"

Now that I thought about it, it did seem kind of far fetched that we would suddenly have a run on James Michner, but stranger things have happened. We do have several patrons who are known for vacuuming up every single book by a given author, making their way around the room, checking out their limit in just this fashion. There were also other possibilities.

"We probably have a few in paperback, too," I offered.

"Why wouldn't you have Michners here?" Butts demanded.

"Again, I don't know off hand," I said. "We do sometimes have to weed out books that are in bad shape or haven't been read in a while, but I doubt we would have weeded any Michners without replacing them."

"He's a major writer! You would throw his books away?!" Butts said, as though I hadn't just covered and debunked that possibility. Apparently he had a real jones on to read some Chesapeake. I decided to stop talking to him at this point, as he was clearly not interested in listening. Instead, I did what I should have done in the first place, which was to casually and leisurely walk over to the circulation computer and look up some damn Michner, for yet another possibility occurred to me at that point.

A year or so back, my boss Mrs. A went on a weeding jag that included books we normally would not weed but which had not actually circulated in over two years. Now that I thought about it, James Michner took a pretty big hit then. Instead of deleting his books from our collection, though, we'd simply boxed them up, along with those of many other authors, and put them in remote storage for future use on the distant, beautiful day when we somehow grew proper shelf space or just gave up on that whole laws-of-physics-thing and started shunting them into an easily retrievable, pocket-dimension-based, shelving system. We labeled each box with a list of its contents and stacked them neatly in the storage area. Of course, as soon as those books went into storage, a startling number of patrons coincidentally found they had developed a sudden, desperate need to read those very books which had sat untouched for two years previous. We also discovered that no matter the author and no matter the title, whatever book they wanted was invariably in the box on the bottom of the pile. This being the case, we had to institute a policy in which we would go and fetch the books for the patrons at a more convenient time for us, rather than immediately, agreeing to have them on hand by the following Friday. This saved us the inevitable hassle of having to go to the storage area and slip a disc shifting boxes—a task that's often difficult to do when one is running the desk solo.

I looked up Michner in the computer and found that most of his works were indeed in the box at the bottom of the pile in remote storage. I offered to put Mr. Butts on hold for whichever specific title or titles he was looking for, but Mr. Butts refused to divulge any such information. In the end, he didn't actually want to read any Michner, he was just deeply offended we didn't have the man's full catalog on hand. He didn't spell that out in actual words, but his expression of disgust said it for him, and loudly.

Throughout the rest of Mr. Butts' visit, I was sickeningly sweet in my customer service. This is my usual policy for dealing with assholes, because it annoys the bejezus out of them. Just overly helpful and all Hope you have a delightful day! After he left, I mentioned to Mrs. B that Mr. Butts had shown his ass. She just shook her head and said, "He can be nasty."

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #83

Usually when people phone the "liberry" and ask to speak to someone by name, it's one of the staff they're referring to. On the rare occasion that people have phoned to speak to patrons, an explanation of precisely who they want to talk to is given first. Not so with the New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids.

*RING*

ME— Tri Metro County Library.

KID— Yeah, can I speak to Michael?

ME— I'm sorry, no Michael works here.

KID— No, I just need to speak to Michael.

(Pause)

ME— I'm sorry, but there is no Michael employed here.

KID— No. I know he doesn't work there. But he's there. He's on the computer? He's a kid on the computer?

(Long seething pause)

ME— There are no children currently on any of our computers.

KID— But he was supposed to be there.

ME— Well... he's not.

Linguistics Lessons not found in the 463s

A patron approached the circ desk and announced that she needed a new Social Security card. She added that "THEY" said she could get one at the "liberry." Could I help her?

Now, while I really wanted to tell this lady, "No, ma'am. You can't get a new Social Security Card here. That's the job of the Social Security Administration and we're a library," I did not. That's because after five plus years of working in this joint, I, like most of my "liberry" ass. brethren across the world, am semi-fluent in Patronese. Yes, Patronese, that mysterious language in which patrons say things that are seemingly nonsensical or wildly out of place but which given the proper perspective can be interpreted to mean something entirely different by those with the skill to do so. (It's a remarkably similar to Customerese, which derrivates from Fuktardic, the family of languages also containing Crackheadish, Patient-speak, Dumbassian and Crazy Talk.)

I consulted my inner English/Patronese dictionary and discovered that despite what she'd said, this patron did not actually expect us to fork over a new SS card on the spot. Instead, she hoped we could assist her in applying for a new SS card, perhaps even online. Of course, knowing what she wanted and achieving it are very different things, particularly when it came to dealing with a bureaucratic governmental agency that I doubted would be willing to reissue her a Social Security card without first seeing seven forms of photo identification, a note from her third grade teacher, and, probably, a Social Security card. I explained to her that while I could help her find the SSA website, I did not know off-hand if applying for a new card online was even possible. She was welcome to log on and have a look, though.

The woman looked very sad. "Well, I already went to the library in TOWN C and their computers couldn't do that," she said. "Do your computers have the same.... uh... the same... um..."

"Internet?" I guessed.

"Yeah," she said.

Again, I already knew what she really meant, which was to say that Town C's library hadn't been able to help her out, most likely due to having a volunteer manning the desk who wasn't entirely computer literate, or perhaps that their computers didn't have the correct version of Flash installed to navigate the SSA site. I would be able to help her find the SSA site and likely directions to a form to print out. Unfortunately, I also knew from her particular dialect of Patronese that she didn't really want to do any of this herself, but wanted me to do it all for her. I probably would have done it too, as helping patrons is MY JOB (and I should really look into shutting up bitching about it so much). However, before I could even offer, her cell phone went off. Her or her caller's reception must have been very bad because she kept having to repeat herself. She looked up at me during this and gave me a very disdainful look, as though her crappy phone were somehow my fault.

"Oh, just forget it," she said, standing up to leave. Of course, you already know that was Patronese for, "This is far more effort that I'd hoped to expend. I really did expect you to give me a new Social Security Card on the spot and you're a terrible human being for crushing my expectations by insisting I take some part in achieving my goals. Screw you guys, I'm going home."

Random Facts (and Rules)

I recently learned, via The Onion's AVClub, that Hitchhiker's Guide creator Douglas Adams and Bloom County/Opus creator Berkeley Breathed were friends. Now that's a pairing I both completely see working and yet still find unexpected. Then again, Adams had a pretty amazing group of friends, from Pythons to rock-star-naturalists to actual rock stars.

This quote is taken from The Onion's Random Rules feature, wherein a celebrity puts their digital music player of choice on shuffle and discusses the ten songs that come up.

http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/random_rules_berkeley_breathed

SONG David Gilmour, "There's No Way Out Of Here"

Berkeley Breathed: Eric Clapton isn't God. There isn't one. But David Gilmour and Pink Floyd fill the void. My good friend Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, died shockingly early, but lived long enough to step onstage and play guitar alongside Gilmour for a birthday present. Almost worth dying young. I think of Douglas when this song pops up, and that's good.

AVC: Who arranged that present for him?

BB: Gilmour, who was a friend of Douglas'. There's something to be said for celebrityhood as a writer.

Still, that sounds like a lot of fun to try. Here are five tracks that my player spit out at random...

"Uncle Walter" Ben Folds Five from their self-titled debut.

I really like Ben Folds Five, particularly their first and third albums. I always thought Ben sounded like the guy from the Kleenex commericals in the 1980s, the ones with the jingle that ended with "Kleenex says... bless yooouuu." Except, I imagine Ben would change those lyrics to something a good bit more rude.

"Sleep to Dream Her" Dave Matthews Band, from Everyday.

Everyday was the album Dave released instead of the material from the now legendary Lillywhite Sessions, most of which was retooled for Busted Stuff. I remember being very disappointed in Everyday initially because it wasn't the same great songs I'd just heard in a live Dave Matthews concert some months beforehand. However, it's a great little album on its own merrit and speaks to the talent DMB possesses. It's sort of a, Ah, we don't fell like releasing all those fantastic songs we already recorded so we'll just dash off a few other fantastic songs and release them instead.

"Armida" Vinx from The Storyteller.

I like Vinx a lot, but I have to confess I've not listened to this particular album more than a couple of times in the 6 or 7 years since I bought it. I tend to listen to his debut album, Rooms in my Fatha's House, instead, which was produced by Sting and is just brilliant stuff. Actor Roscoe Lee Brown, who recently passed away, has a part on it and Sheryl Crow sings backup on a song or two (albeit billed as Cheryl Crow). I feel a little bad that I liked Vinx's first album so much yet haven't given his next two that I own a fair shake to stick in my head, nor have I sampled any of the 10 albums or so he's put out since.

"How We Won the War" Patton Oswalt from Feelin Kinda Patton.

Patton Oswalt is my favorite comedian working today. This track is particularly funny. He has a new comedy album being released next week. I'm there.


"I Know What I Know" Paul Simon, Graceland.

Whether it's true or not, I've long claimed to be my generation's greatest Paul Simon fan. Graceland was my introduction to him. Actually, his appearance on Saturday Night Live, round about 1987, just a few months before Graceland was released, was my first introduction to him. Since then I've gobbled up about everything he's put out and gone back to seek out past records, including, of course, Simon & Garfunkel. "I Know What I Know" is not my favorite song from Graceland, but I like it all the same.

Further Confessions of a Complete Goober

My moms in law is in town this week. As always, it's been fantastic! See, Ma likes to spoil us with comfort foods, including such favorites as blackberry cobbler, strawberry rhubarb crisp and her world-famous banana pudding. Also, because Ma can't stand a mess, our house is more or less spotless. I tell you, there's no downside.

Since I had the day off, and since Ma was around to provide me with transportation, I decided to take my car to the repair shop down the road to have a few of its many ailments seen to. I walked back, resumed my day off and soon discussions turned to what we were to have for dinner. We didn't have quite all of the ingredients for the chicken alfredo pizza Ma had proposed, so I agreed to take her car and head out to the store.

"I'll probably stop by the gym, first," I told her. Gotta work off some of this cobbler, after all.

I unlocked Ma's vehicle using the key fob button on her keychain, but found I couldn't open the driver's side door. Ma had warned me, though, that her driver's side door doesn't always open via the handle, so I would have to go around and open it from the passenger side. This I did.

On arriving at the gym, I found myself with a dilemma. Ma's keychain is a massive construction, largely due to the commercial-kitchen-sized canister of pepper spray she lugs around on it. Now, I have no problems going to the store and buying maxi-pads or tampons or Midol or any of the other things most guys typically have issues with being sent to the store to buy. I just don't see what the big deal is about it; after all, no one is going to assume I'm buying such items for myself, but, instead, will assume that I'm buying them for a girlfriend or wife, further indicating that I am equipped with a woman and therefore not a complete loser.

That said, damn if I was lugging a big ol' can of pepper spray into the gym on a set of gargantu-girly keys. Instead, I removed the vehicle's key from the key chain, clipped it to my own keys and went in to work out.

Afterward, I returned to Ma's car where I again had to open the driver's side door from the passenger side. I didn't even have to use the key, though, for I'd left the car unlocked.

At the grocery store, I decided to leave my MP3 player in the car. To make sure that it was still there when I returned, I hit the door lock and headed on into the store. Some 20 minutes later, I emerged, laden with groceries, and attempted to unlock the driver's side door with Ma's key. The key barely made it half-way into the lock before stopping. No amount of wiggling would allow it any further.

Oh, that's the broken door, I thought. I then tried the passenger door and had the same result. No deal.

Aw, shit, I thought. I've locked myself out of the car. How dumb. My MP3 player stared up at me from the passenger seat, as did the enormous can of pepper spray and the magic door unlocking key fob clipped to it. I stood there for a minute, the sun beating down on me, my two canisters of Minute Maid concentrated orange juice mix thawing in the plastic bags at my side. Then I dug out my cell and phoned Ma.

I've had to confess a lot of dumb things to my mother-in-law over the years. For instance, there was the time I drove from Tupelo, MS, to Hickory, NC, to see Ashley, but took a wrong turn in Atlanta and wound up taking I-75 instead of I-85. Unfortunately, I was in Chattanooga before I realized my mistake. I knew I'd need to phone Ashley to let her know I would be late, but didn't have her number at work, so I had to phone Ma to get the number, at which point she interrogated the truth out of me. Not fun, but to her credit Ma did eventually let me marry her daughter despite my repeatedly proven status as a complete goober.

Ma took the door-locking incident in stride. She admitted that she wasn't sure if there was even a door key on the ring, as she always used the key fob to unlock the door. She did say that she had an emergency back up key in her pocketbook, but since there were no other vehicles at home I would have to find a way to come get it.

"Can you get a ride with someone you know there?" she asked.

Oddly, I had seen a handful of patrons in and around the store who knew me from the "liberry." There was Mrs. French, who is a patron I like a lot and have worked with in local theatrical productions, but I'd just seen her drive away as I arrived at the car. There was also Mabel, a lady who used to be one of our resident amateur geneal0gists before Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine usurped her throne. I'd seen her heading into the store on my way out. And, unfortunately, there was also Mr. Perfect.

I've only written about Mr. W. Perfect peripherally in the past. He's a patron of ours who's a nice enough guy, but distinguishes himself through his insistence on using only W0rd Perfect for his word processing. He loves W0rd Perfect and, given the opportunity, will go on and on about it, praising Corel for having created the program in the first place, lecturing us on how it has enriched his life and proclaiming his undying devotion to it. I personally hate W0rd Perfect, mostly because of Corel's insistence of refusing to use the same keyboard commands as other, superior products and generally being in league with the devil. I therefore find such devotion to it irritating and kind of creepy. Whatever. Unfortunately for Mr. Perfect, only one of our patron computers still has W0rd Perfect on it and he tends to only need to use it when that computer is otherwise taken. He's always very cool about it and never raises a stink, but often fills any amount of time he has to wait for it with flowerly soliloquies about how grateful he is to live on the same planet as W0rd Perfect and his barely platonic love for the program.

Even as I stood there in the parking lot, I spied Mr. Perfect approaching his own car. I considered going over and asking him for help, but asking someone to drive you home and then back was kind of a big favor to ask, particularly of someone you're not friends with in the first place. I didn't imagine he would turn me down, or anything, but I really didn't want to owe Mr. Perfect any favors. There are patrons I like, patrons I don't like, patrons I tolerate and patrons I'm more or less indifferent to. I'm indifferent to Mr. Perfect, other than that whole vaguely creepy feeling about his lust for W0rd Perfect. But our relationship is pretty much one of cordial distance and I like it that way and don't want to upset that balance.

As I watched, Mr. Perfect opened the hood of his car and began staring into his engine. Ah, great. So he too had car problems. Maybe he was just putting in new oil.

I turned away and began searching the wheel wells for the magnetic key holder that Ma had said had been hidden in one of them at some point in the past. I didn't find it in any of them, so I lay on the pavement to check beneath the car itself, trying to ignore the strange looks I was receiving from passers by.

I considered my options. I could try calling my insurance agency, but I didn't think they would pay for a locksmith to open someone else's car. I then considered phoning Mrs. A or Mrs. C and asking them to come over. They'd probably do it, but I hated to have to ask. I could just sit there and wait for Ashley to get off from work, but she's working out of town this month so a wait for her return would be fairly lengthy. I could walk home. As the crow flies, I didn't live very far away, but there was really no crow-path to my house that didn't involve crossing angry-bull-inhabited fields.

I sighed and looked back over my shoulder toward Mr. Perfect's car. It was gone. In its place, however, was a new car driven by my church choir director, Martha. I almost wished Mr. Perfect had still been there, because I owe Martha pretty big already. I've not been to choir practice, let alone sang with the choir since before going to Alaska. Granted, I've been out of town a lot and our summer choir practice schedule has been fairly thin, but that choir is hurting for tenors and I haven't been out of town so often that I couldn't come in. Martha would never broach the subject, but I knew she was thinkin' it.

"Are you having trouble?" Martha asked.

"Uh huh," I said.

Upon hearing my tale of woe, Martha graciously offered to drive me home and back. My fear was that Ma's back up key would be another ignition key, but instead it was an emergency door key that unlocked the doors just fine. I thanked Martha and told her she was my guardian angel. And though it was never discussed, I estimate that it will take at least three months of regularly attended choir practices to pay off this debt.

Screen shot

Hey, I'm famous.

http://pcdesktops.blogspot.com/2007/07/juices-pc-screenshot-from-usa.html

Ah, Inconsistently Executed Public Service, You are Indeed a Harsh Mistress

While I often feel the urge to scream at patrons, it's a rare occasion that I want to haul off and belt one. I'm still not convinced I really wanted to belt annoying patron Ms. Green, Sean Connery-style, but I was tempted to cram her cell-phone in her mouth and tatoo some basic library policy somewhere on her person that she might notice it.

Ms. Green came in to return a book. Before she could, though, she spotted a friend of hers and the two of them began conversing next to the circ-desk, recommending books to one another and having a good old time. No problem. We weren't busy and they weren't so much in the way. Then Ms. Green's cell phone went off.

"Oh, wait, let me see if this is someone I want to talk to," Ms. Green said, taking a gander at her phone's screen. She stared at it for a few seconds while its irritating and lengthy chirp continued at full volume. (And what company would willfully design a ringtone as annoying as THAT one? For that matter, why would anyone willingly choose THAT ringtone? "Let's see... Out of all the ringtone choices I have here, I think I'll pick the one that sounds like a convicted cockatiel's first night in Cell Block-D. Yeah, that'll be a good one.")

"Nah," she said, and set the phone down on the desk where it continued to chirp, long and loud. She didn't decline the call. She didn't put it on silent mode. She just let it do its thing and went back to her conversation over the racket. Whomever was calling was pretty intent on talking to Ms. Green, too, cause the phone continued to chirp for nearly half a minute. Strike one against Ms. Green.

Shortly, Ms. Green's friend went off to search for a book while Ms. Green remained at the desk, leafing through the book her friend had just returned and recommended. Ms. Green's own return lay on the desk before her.

"Are you returning that one?" I asked.

"Yes, but I need to wait and do it in a minute because I forgot my library card."

Now, what Ms. Green was indicating was that she wanted to wait until she was ready to check out before actually returning her book so that, when I scanned her book to check it in, her patron record would pop up on our screen, allowing us access to her record without her card and, she hoped, allowing her to check other stuff out on it. This is a back door method for checking books out without a card that we USED to employ back before our library consortium cracked down on such rules violations and which some of our staff, on occasion, still use even today when no one in authority is looking. Strictly speaking it's not allowed, especially for patrons with strikes against them.

"Um, I'm really not supposed to do that either," I told Ms. Green. "You need to have your library card to check out books." This is not news to Ms. Green, for we've all had the You need to have your card... conversation with her many a time before. It did not, however, stop her from giving me an appraising look, perhaps sizing up my potential for being swayed by either charm or hissy fit. She decided to try charm and began blinking at me in what I can only assume was an attempt at sympathy-seeking puppy dog-eyes.

"Reeeallllly?" she said. Blink blink blink.

Unmoved, I nodded.

She blinked at me some more, before adding, "This look's not working, huh?" She actually said that. I smiled politely, but gave no quarter.

I thought she might next try for "fit" but she only lightly complained that she really needed something to read before heading to the health club, but now wouldn't have anything and would be forced to read a magazine instead. Oh, the pain.

Y'know, if aquiring something to read was so all fired important to her when she decided to come to the library, it seems like she might have, oh, I don't know, brought her card with her, or something. I mean, isn't "Repeating the same behavior and expecting different results" the very definition of insanity? And beyond that, I continue to SO completely fail to understand patrons who keep doing things like this. Is it truly that much of a hassle to keep up with your library card?

After a few more minutes of browsing and chatting with her friend, it suddenly occurred to Ms. Green that she still had one other book checked out. Her manner suggested that she was afraid the book might be nearly overdue and in need of a renewal. I knew what was coming when she returned to the circ-desk.

"Oh, oh, I have this other book out I'd like to check on," she said. "It'll be under Mary Green." Then she did that frantic little hand wave at the monitor patrons always do when they want us to just work our magic with it when they don't have their card. It's the very sort of gesture that says, yeah, yeah, we all know you can look us up by name no matter what you tell us, so just make with the lookin' up and we'll all go home happy.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but I really do need your library card to access your patron record."

Ms. Green looked surprised for a second, as though I was telling her something she'd never heard before. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, as if she were about to say something, most likely about previous "liberry" ass.es who'd let her look up her record in just this manner despite it being against the rules. A mildly annoyed expression crossed her face and I thought she might be reconsidering her hissy fit, but she didn't attempt one nor a return to the puppy dog-eyes. What could she say? "But, Mrs. B let me get away with breaking the rules!"?

To quote Gedde Watanabe, "Suppliiiiies!"

Screw the IPhone, I want one of these!

S is for Shifting

I was in the general fiction L's when I spied, resting on its side, neatly atop one row of the books there, a lone Dennis LeHane. Poking from beneath the front cover of it was a bright orange shelving slip, indicating that eternal Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S had at some point intended to shelve this particular book. As she hadn't been on shift for over a full day, she had obviously failed in her task. (As had the rest of us in noticing during the subsequent day.)

I picked up the book, to finish her shelving job, but found that the row of LeHanes it belonged in was packed so tightly that it was impossible to wedge in this new one. Shelf rows above and below the LeHanes were similarly packed.

Now, if one were to be charitable, one might assume that Ms. S had attempted to shelve the book, found that the shelves were packed, intended to shift properly in order to fit it, but got sidetracked by a patron and set the book down--merely temporarily, mind you--then forgot to come back and shelve it later. Or, one might look at the history of the employee in question and recall her great animosity toward the very concept of shifting books and decide that she forgot to do it out of convenience.

Whatever the case, one of the reasons the shelves were so tight is because the greenhorns keep shelving new books in them. We recently had a motherload of new books arrive and the new books section became wildly overcrowded. The greenhorns, who've often been guilty of shelving the new books on a good day, asked and were given permission to shelve some of the older new books on the walls rather than stick to our usual 6 months in the New Section rule for new books on the walls to free up room in the new section. Many of the ones I've found, though, were from as recent as last month, so they weren't exactly being picky about which ones they shelved.

Oddly, as much animosity as I've had toward Ms. S, I've recently found that my dislike of her has been growing far less. With the above example, she's clearly not started doing her job to perfection or anything. However, now that she's had a year under her belt, she has gotten better and has stopped exhibitting quite the degree of laziness we're accustomed to seeing. Either that or we've just gotten accustomed to it and are no longer so offended.

Further oddly, when she arrived for her shift the other day, I found myself greeting her with genuine friendliness.

Maybe I'm coming down with something.

No, I really do think she's actually gotten better. She still asks lots of questions, but the questions are no longer so dumb and with such obvious answers as they once were. Furthermore, she seems far less surly than she has been. Maybe its just the sort of job that takes some people about a year to settle in to. It took Ms. M that long to acheive a status in which we did not curse her very name. Now she's a valued employee who has graduated greenhorndom and acheived the rank of "Liberry" Ass. I'm not yet ready to grant that to Ms. S, but I can forsee a day when I might.

Dishin' It Up: A Cautionary Tale (LAST EPILOGUE EVER)

It's been over two months since my last bit of dealing with the vile and ass-sucking entity known as DirecTV. It's been blissful. In fact, I continue to have nothing but high praise for Dish Network, despite the fact that I am still without distant networks, except for Fox. If I must be without distant networks, I'd much rather be without them with Dish Network than with the sphincter remora that is DirecTV. But I digress...

Last I heard from them, they still owed me $16.32, the difference between the amount they originally said we owed them for our early disconnection and the amount they eventually wound up crediting us in order to cover the original claim against us.

In the intervening days, we've faithfully received a bill each month displaying that credit of $16.32.

Today, we finally received a check in the mail for the amount of $16.32. I will, of course, be cashing it and hoping against hope that it is the final piece of mail, junk or otherwise, I ever receive from that company.

I'm an optimistic soul, no?

Got them Gravity Hill, Ain't Got No Card, Oh, Wait, I do Have a Card, or DID Have a Card, AND Fines, Blues.

Mrs. J was sweeping the front walk when a large lady came huffing and puffing up the gravity hill. She was about to fall over from the strain. (In her defense, the gravity hill doesn't look like much of a problem to ascend, but, being the gravity hill, it always is.) Mrs. J didn't know the lady, but they talked for a minute or two. I learned later that the lady had asked Mrs. J how she might obtain a library card and Mrs. J had told her we needed her to fill out a form and produce a drivers license. I didn't know that then, though.

The lady and Mrs. J came inside and between wheezes the lady was all, "Oh, lordy mercy, that hill!" and "I should stop smoking," and "Oh my gosh, that hill," and stuff. She barely made it to the circ desk, where she deposited her brick of a pocketbook and began digging in it, I presumed for her library card.

"What I need is a basic math book," the lady explained. I looked one up for her and Mrs. J volunteered to head upstairs to nonfiction to retrieve it, so that the lady's heart wouldn't explode going up our staircase. While we waited, the lady continued digging in her pocketbook for her card, going through several thick, rubber-band wrapped stacks of cards and papers and the like. I went back to processing magazines while she searched.

"Will you take an insurance card?" she asked.

Wow, that hill really had addled her brain.

"No, ma'am. We need the actual card."

"What about a driver's license?"

"I'm sorry, but we need the actual card," I said.

"What card?"

"Your library card."

She gave me a long confused look.

"But I don't have one."

"You weren't just searching your purse for your library card?"

"No. I was looking for my license to get a card."

Oohhhhhh, now I got it. I whipped out an application, which she filled out and handed over. Then, when I started creating the card in the computer an identical record popped up before I'd even arrived at the Unique ID section. Same name, address, phone and drivers license popped up in the previously existing record. It also had $179.80 worth of fines and was blocked.

"Ma'am, it looks like we do have a patron record on file for you already. Looks like it's from TOWN-D."

"TOWN-D? Oh, I haven't been to TOWN-D in years and years and years and years and years. I don't have a card from there."

"Well, I've got you right here with the same name, address, telephone number and drivers license number, from TOWN-D. I'm afraid this says you have $179.80 in fines with them, so I can't check anything out to you until you take care of that."

"How much?" she asked in a cool measured and not entirely surprised tone.

I told her and it still didn't seem to phase her. She didn't ask what the fines were for, didn't bat an eye. For that amount of money, I would have spotted her a tantrum, but she didn't get upset at all.

"I'll just go right over there and pay that," she said. "Then I'll come back here and finish getting this card."

"Actually, your card from Town-D will work here."

"Oh?" she said calmly.

"Yes."

"You have a good day," she said, moving toward the door.

"You too," I said. "The hill's easier going down."

She laughed and left.

After checking out a few more patrons, I looked up the lady's account to see what she had out that cost $179.80. Turned out the fines were for four videos—basic Hollywood movies, most likely purchased at Wally World and donated—checked out in 2004. Town-D assigned a replacement value of around $44.95 each to them. My guess is, they'll never see it nor the videos nor that patron ever again.

Then again, nor will we.

Dear Robert Palmer...

The strangest thing happened yesterday.

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

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

Tell me, am I dreaming?

Mr. B-Moustache?

Mr. B-Natural, as he threatened, is now wireless laptop equipped. He proudly marches into the "liberry," laptop case slung casually at his side, and gestures at us using the international sign-language for "Gimme a 4 hour session of wireless time, I've got a crossword puzzle callin' my name."

The odd thing is that along with his acquisition of modern personal technology, Mr. B-Natural has also acquired both a moustache and a golf-cap that looks as though it lost a fight with a leaky car battery. The cap is riddled with holes, allowing its padding to show through in places, but he wears it proudly all the same. While the moustache has yet to fully grow in, I have to admit that it kind of suits him. Or, at least, it works far better than the shiny silver toupee he sported, a few years back, before returning it, presumably to the toupee store, scarcely a week later.

She was born where?

On Friday, Birthday Lady phoned for Ruth Graham's birthday, following her unfortunate passing. She was born June 10, 1920 to medical missionary parents in Qingjiang, Kiangsu, China.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #82

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

TELEMARKETER— (Female voice with thick Indian accent) Hello, my name is (name said too quickly to catch) and I am calling on behalf of (company name said too quickly to catch). May I please speak to the owner of the business?

ME— Um, this is a public library.

TELEMARKETER— Yes. May I please speak to the owner of the business?

(Pause)

ME— Well, that's going to be kind of hard. There are quite a few of them.

TELEMARKETER— I'm sorry?

ME— This is a public library.

TELEMARKETER— Yes. May I please speak to the... May I... Maybe you can help me to understand?

ME— We're a PUBLIC. LIBRARY.

TELEMARKETER— Are you a person who is able to make decisions for the business?

ME— No. I am an employee of a public library. I can't make decisions.

TELEMARKETER— May I speak to someone who is able to make decisions for the business?

ME— No. She's not here at the moment, but she doesn't take sales calls.

TELEMARKETER— But I am not selling you something, yet.

ME— Even so.

TELEMARKETER— I would please like to ask you a few questions about your...

ME— I'm sorry, but I don't think I can answer your questions. I'm the only employee at work right now and I need to go.

TELEMARKETER— When would be a more convenient time to call back?

ME— Again, my boss does not take sales calls or telemarketing calls. We're a public library. We're not really set up for this sort of thing.

(Long pause)

TELEMARKETER— Thank you very much, and have a good evening.

ME— You too.

*CLICK*

PATRON STANDING AT DESK— Dude, you were far more patient with them than I would have been.

(The moral of this story is that apparently not only are America's help desk jobs being outsourced overseas, but now our telemarketing jobs are as well.)

Memestruck V

I've been memetagged by Sara over at Disheveled. Here are the rules as given...

"Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog."

I, however, am going to ignore the last part of the rules, violating the very nature of the meme, because I'm too cool for that. If you'd like to continue it on your own, consider yourself tagged.

1. When I was in the 5th grade, I embezzled over $80 from the March of Dimes. Our school's administration forced us out into the world to collect donations for the March, (though I didn't think of it in those terms at the time so it's not like my embezzlement was an act of protest, or anything). We were all supposed to take our little donation envelope and go door to door, collecting money which we were to turn in at school on a specific date. When that specific date arrived, I was genuinely home sick. I wanted to turn the money in anyway, and even brought it with me to school the next day, but because our teachers had stressed to us so many times that they couldn't take any money after the deadline had passed, I was afraid to bring up the subject because I thought they would yell at me. I investigated no further and no one ever asked me about it. After a few months of storing the money in my safe place in the bookshelf of our living room, I began spending the money, slowly, so as not to draw attention to myself. Though I have probably not yet paid it all back, I still guiltilly purchase the little March of Dimes paper shoes whenever a grocery store clerk asks if I'd like to contribute as I'm checking out.

2. Out of the 50 or 60 comics I've obtained on Free Comic Book Day, during the past three years, I don't believe I've read more than two of them. Instead, they sit in stacks or in plastic bags in my office, unread and unloved. I have no explanation for this nor, seemingly, the ability to do anything about it.

3. I have an annoying habit of purchasing new albums by artists I love and then not listening to them for years at a stretch or even listening to them enough times to give them a fair shake. Sometimes those same albums, when given a chance later, become my favorite albums by a given artist. Perhaps I'm afraid I'll be disappointed and turned off an artist. Perhaps its my collector mentality, evidenced on Free Comic Book Day, where I'm content to merely own them. Not sure. Currently I have the following albums waiting to be given a test drive: Fiona Apple's "When the Pawn..." which I listened to years ago and loved but have not heard more than a song randomly played by my mp3 player now that I own it; Barenaked Ladies "Are Me" which I've heard a couple of times, but haven't played repeatedly as I have with their others; They Might Be Giants "The Spine"; Michael Penn "Resigned"; Midnight Oil "Breathe" and "Redneck Wonderland"; Dave Matthews Band "Stand Up" which I've only heard a couple of times; Sonia Dada "Barefootsoul" and "Test Pattern" both of which I've listened to once, enjoyed, and never touched again; Subdudes "Two Beasts"; Vinx "I love my job" and "Storyteller"; and pretty much anything by David Wilcox, most of whose albums I've owned for years, have listened to and enjoyed once, and still haven't given another good shake.

4. I was quite disappointed by the final episode of the Sopranos. (MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.) Not so much the very end of the episode that people have complained about, which can be interpreted in a number of ways and will likely be talked about for years, but for the fact that Paulie Walnuts did not die in a horrible manner, or indeed AT ALL. Ever since the episode a few seasons back where Paulie kills one of his elderly mother's equally elderly friends because he mistakenly thinks she's got money stashed somewhere, I've been waiting for Paulie's death and have hoped that it would occur in the most horrible manner possible. I was overjoyed when he got prostate cancer last season, as that seemed like it would be a good, long, slow, horrible death for him. But he beat it! And who do they kill off? Bobby, the one character on the show that I liked as a human being and was sorry to see shackled to the likes of Janice. Oh, and they royally messed up Silvio, who, despite being pretty amoral himself, was just so cool that you really didn't mind. Paulie, however, is irredeemably evil and I so wanted to see him switch to Phil's side, get caught at it and then be beaten to death by Tony at 3 o'clock, or something equally fitting to the show's established elements. Now that I think about it, though, if Tony was indeed hit when the show went to black, it would have come from 3 o'clock. Ahhhhhh. David Chase, I think I'm on to you.

5. Vol. 1 has an end. And it will, though you might not notice right away.

6. One of my major regrets in life is trying eggnog. Each Christmas season, throughout my time on earth, I've seen people nearly break their necks running to get a cup of eggnog like it was one of the best things you could possibly drink, and I always wondered what the big deal was. I even recall, at a fairly early age, being denied eggnog by my father (likely for my own good, as it was probably spiked) and deciding thereafter not to drink the stuff on principle. I went for years turning down offered cups of eggnog, resolved to go through life without having tasted it. Then, a couple years back, at my in-laws' house, I decided that was silly and I should just try some and did. The experience was so underwhelming that I cannot for the life of me see what all those people who nearly killed themselves trying to get some were after. It was just so very bleh tasting that I cannot understand what the big deal about it is. It made me angry. I mean, if it had been even as good as drinking a cookies N cream milkshake, I could maybe see the attraction, but it just wasn't good at all. Maybe it's that people who love eggnog don't really like the eggnog so much as whatever alcohol they've spiked it with. In other words, it's a good excuse to drink hard liquor in front of the kids without them knowing about it and the reason all those people from my childhood were so happy drinking it is because they were getting wasted. That's the only thing I can think of to explain the craze. That or peer pressure.

7. On a similar topic, I am in possession of secret knowledge of the true origin behind both a fad and a grandly successful unintentional sociological experiment. See, the cafeteria of the high school I attended, (Starkville High, in Starkpatch, MS), is legendary for its chicken nuggets. The legend and resulting incidents didn't start during my time there, but during my younger sister's time there and have reportedly continued in the years since. What happened is this: in the early 1990s, on our cafeteria's chicken nugget day there were literally stampedes through the hallways escalating into riots in the lunch line due to students attempting to cut in line in order to quench their desire to stuff their gobs with mechanically separated poultry parts that much more quickly. Now, as an alumnus, I consumed many of those same nuggets myself and can report that they were nothing special and were pretty sub par for even a high school cafeteria. When I was in college, I heard of these riots and was mystified by them. I mean, who has that kind of passion about chicken nuggets? The craze over them can be explained, though, not due to their actual taste but instead to the idea of their taste as sold by a charismatic huckster named Shane McRae. Shane is an actor these days, but back then he was something of a Ferris Bueller type, beloved by pretty much any given clique you might find in a high school. He was friends with everyone from theatre nerds to jocks to goths to bandnerds to bowheads, etc. Years later, while talking to Shane and some other friends, the topic of the Chicken Nugget Riots of 1992 arose and Shane laughed and explained that he was behind it all. One day, in a class right before lunch, Shane told one of his friends that he was about to start something big; he would race to the cafeteria as though his life depended on it and tell anyone in his path to get out of said path because no one was getting in his way on chicken nugget day. And this he did. Within weeks, whenever they were posted on the menu, there were whole lines and then whole herds of students racing to wait in line to eat these phenomenally shitty chicken nuggets. And it continued for YEARS after he graduated. For all I know, it continues to this day. Shane may go on to win Academy Awards, but, if for nothing else, he has achieved immortality for the chicken nuggets.

8. My highschool cafeteria did, however, make the best Ranch dressing I've ever had and I crave it to this day.

I can hear it in their VERY VOICES!

Mrs. A and I were at the circ desk when the phone rang and I answered it. A lady on the line explained that we had been holding a book for her and she wanted to make sure we still were, because she knew her hold time was up soon. We still had her book and I told her she still had a day to pick it up.

"I'll be right over to get it," she said.

As I hung up the phone, I turned to Mrs. A and announced, "She will not have her library card when she arrives. I can hear it in her voice."

Mrs. A laughed and continued processing inter"liberry" loan requests.

Ten minutes later, the patron from the phone arrived and mentioned that she was the person who'd just called. While she browsed our new fiction, I fetched her held book and set it upon the counter, awaiting the inevitable. Sure enough, she came over and said, "Am I ready to go?"

"Actually, I need to check it out to you first. Can I scan your library card?"

"You mean you... oh," she said. "I need the card?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said sweetly.

"You can't just look me up by..."

"No, ma'am," I said even more sweetly, this time with a smile.

She seemed to debate something internally for a couple of seconds, then gestured to the door and gave the international sign language for I'll be right back, I have to go get my pocketbook out of the car. When she was out the door, I turned to Mrs. A.

"What did I say?" I asked. "I tell you, I can hear it in their VERY VOICES!"

Mrs. A was suitably impressed.

I was even more correct than I had originally thought, though. Back our patron came, pocketbook in hand. She dug through it for nearly a minute searching for her card. Occasionally she would mutter, "I bet she still has it," and "Ohhhhh, she didn't give it back." Finally, she gave me a pitiful look and explained that she was pretty sure she'd loaned her card to her daughter, but the kid hadn't returned it. She then blinked hopefully and her eyes darted to my computer, using the international eye-sign-language for You could just look my name up in your computer, couldn't you?

"I can hold it for you here," I said, my own voice straining at the known boundaries of sweetness.

The patron left, sans book.

Twenty minutes later, she returned. Turns out she'd only left her card at work.

Combat Pay (PART II)

After a bit, a new computer patron happened in and I was forced to go back and log them onto a computer within Barbara Turdmurkle's field of vision.

"Oh, oh, excuuuuuse me. I need some help heeeere," Barbie T said in her slow, breathy, singsong voice, upon catching sight of me. I stepped over to her system. Barbara explained that she was trying to look at her credit report on her credit protection agency's website, but couldn't seem to get into it.

"Did you try your username and password?" I asked her.

"Whaaaat?"

"Your username and password," I said. "In order to access your account with them, you have to log into the site using a username and password."

Barbie thought for a moment. "I don't have one."

"Yes, you do," I said. I told her that the last time I'd seen her in the library, she'd been trying to check her credit report and had phoned up her protection agency and spoken to someone who had given her a username and password, which she'd written down and used to access her account. In order to do that again, she would have to use that username and password.

Barbara said she didn't remember any of that. She remembered I had helped her then, but she didn't know what her password might be. I suggested it might help if she phoned up her credit protection agency and asked them what it might be.

At that moment, a patron carried some books on tape past me headed seemingly toward the front room.

"I'm sorry, but I have to go back up front. I'm the only staff member in the building," I said.

"Oh, no, I'm going to be a while," the tape carrying patron said. I nearly spat on her.

Barbara Turdmurkle pointed to her screen. "Since I couldn't get my credit report, I wanted to look at something else." She explained then that she was trying to find a list of local car dealerships who were friendly with her insurance agency, the PROMINENT TEXAS-BASED INSURANCE COMPANY.

"Have you been to their website?" I asked, noting that the auto insurance search engine on her screen was not it.

She said she had and had tried to find it but nothing had worked and it had taken her twenty minutes to find the screen she was now on which wasn't giving her what she wanted either. To demonstrate, she clicked the search button beside of which was a completely blank search field. Nothing happened. I could feel my head start to ache.

"Ma'am, that isn't PTBIC's website. If you want to find PTBIC-friendly dealers, I suggest you start back at PTBIC's website."

"But it took me twenty minutes to get here," she said.

"Ma'am, I really REALLY recommend that you go back to PTBIC's site and start again."

Barbie T blinked at her screen and made no move to do so. She seemed reluctant to leave the incorrect screen on the grounds that it had taken her so long to incorrectly get there. So I explained to her again that the site she was on was not PTBIC's site and if she wanted to find information about them the best place to start was WITH THEIR SITE.

"Or maybe you know which dealerships would work with them?" she asked hopefully. The only explanation I have for this is that apparently the memory that I too am a customer of PTBIC filtered through her noggin.

"No. I do not have that information," I said. I then, for a third time, suggested she return to the PTBIC website, hoping to leave her to it.

"I don't know how to do that," she said.

Blood vessels in my brain strained at the force exerted upon them

So, I stepped over and showed her how to click in the address bar and told her what to type. She misspelled both the address and the ".com" following it. We corrected and moved on.

At the PTBIC's site, there was no indication of what she wanted. We searched high and low and didn't find it in any readily apparent place.

"Ma'am, what I would suggest you do is to phone PTBIC and ask them to tell you the names of the dealerships they work with."

"I've already been on the phone with them for two hours, today," she said. Oh, those poor poor people. "They gave me this password," she said, pointing to a piece of paper she had brought. Ah, now she knows about passwords. Unfortunately for her, there was no accompanying login for her "password" nor any place on the site where it made sense to type it. I tried to explain that in probably 99.999 percent of the cases where a password is required, there will also be a username or login name as well. She would not only need that, but would also need a better idea of where to type them. Barbie T then slowly and breathily told me that she needed to find the information not in order to purchase a new car from a PTBIC friendly dealer, but because she had ALREADY purchased a car from a non-PTBIC-friendly dealer and had gotten herself into some sort of financial trouble doing so. Deeper and deeper grew the dungpit of dealing with Barbie T.

Thankfully, having now spent 10 minutes away from the circ-desk, a patron popped her head into the hall to see if I might come check her out, so I was able to leave Barbie T to her own devices. She was not finished with me, though. After a few minutes she hobbled on up to the circ-desk and proceeded to interrogate me further on the subject of PTBIC friendly dealerships. I even returned to the PTBIC's site and tried to find something—ANYTHING—that might prove or, better still, disprove that there was any help to be had for her. Throughout the process, we were interrupted by patrons checking out, each of whom Barbie T—in a desperate, attention-starved ploy—dropped hints to about how her life was a sob story in an effort to get them to engage her in conversation about it. Wisely, they avoided taking the bait. I was eventually able to convince her that her best course of action was to leave and go call PTBIC and let some other poor bastard deal with her.

Barbie T thanked me for my patience and my help, lingered at the desk a bit longer, as if considering possibly asking me for help on other topics, then finally hobbled her way out the door.

Immediately, I wrote a note to my boss that in the future she should really consider giving the staff a Barbara Turdmurkle Combat Pay bonus whenever we have to deal her, cause it's just not worth it for what we make now.

Combat Pay (PART I)

Five O'Clock was nearly upon us, on my first day back at work, which meant the rest of the staff would soon flee the building, leaving me by my lonesome. That being the case, I went up to the staff bathroom to have myself a whiz before returning to the circ desk for my remaining two hour stretch. Upon entering the main room, I was greeted with the horrifying sight of Barbara Turdmurkle, bees of insanity buzzing frantically about her head, signing up for a computer.

Aw shit, I nearly said aloud. Mrs. B gave me a very sympathetic look as she walked past me to go log on a system for Barbie T.

This was not good. Not good at all.

Granted, a visit from Barbara Turdmurkle is never good, but it's especially bad when computers are involved. In addition to being BUGF**K CRAZY, Barbara Turdmurkle is also computer illiterate to an astounding degree. Yet she keeps purchasing services which require computer access to use.

After ten minutes trapped in the computer hall, putting her well past five o'clock, Mrs. B returned to the front room.

"Did you get her taken care of?" Mrs. C asked.

"I don't think so, but I'm going home," Mrs. B said. Then she added in my direction, "Sorry."

"Traitor!"

She quickly left, along with the rest of the gleeful traitors.

For the next twenty minutes I studiously avoided any library duty that might cause me to come in proximity to the computer hall. This was difficult, because people kept coming in to sign up for computers, causing me to have to actually enter the comuter hall to log them onto systems. Fortunately, the first one was at a system not in Barbie T's direct line of sight, so I was able to stealthily creep up, log it on and then creep away, much liken unto a ninja. I did notice what she was doing with her computer, though: she was trying to log in to her credit protection agency's site. No, no, no, no, no, no, not good. I instantly knew how this little drama was going to play out.

A few minutes later, one of the other computer users signed out and said, "That woman back there is having a lot of trouble on the computer. She kept asking me for help, but I didn't know how to help her."

I thanked the patron for the information, watched her leave and then stayed put at the desk.

Was this a demonstration of a library employee being actively and perhaps stubbornly non-service-oriented? Hells yes, and I make no apologies for it. I want NOTHING. TO. DO. with Barbara Turdmurkle if I can at all help it. Beyond being an exasperating and quite insane human being, Barbie T has a long history of claiming to have been groped, verbally abused or otherwise assaulted by men who have innocently assisted her in the past, regardless of witness testimony that such incidents did not occur.

An example: My boss Mrs. A told me that a few years back a neighboring library allowed a local man to conduct a computer class in their facility on a Saturday afternoon after closing time. One such Saturday, Barbie T came up and began banging on the door, clearly after the posted hours, and continued to bang on the door until the guy had to stop class to see what she wanted. Barbie T insisted that she HAD to make photocopies, that it was a dire photocopy emergency and she simply HAD to make them there despite his protestations that they were closed and he wasn't authorized to let nonclassmembers in the building. The man finally relented and let her in anyway. Being completely helpless with all forms of technology, Barbie T also required assistance in making her photocopies which, according to the legend, were numerous and complicated. The man had to stop his class to assist her, eventually got her to leave and then she went out into the community and told everyone she met that he'd felt her up and cursed at her when she declined his advances. Nevermind that the entire incident was witnessed by the members of his class who all said no such thing occurred. Unfortunately for many people, that was not the only time such allegations have been spread against innocents by Barbara Turdmurkle. I wish very much to avoid being her next victim.

Another example: Barbie T has a longstanding animosity with the neighbor in the apartment next to hers. I know this, as do a surprising number of people in our county, because Barbie T will tell anyone who strays near her about about how evil her neighbor is, how her neighbor has sex with her boyfriend against the adjoining wall just to annoy Barbie T, and how Barbie is convinced that the evil neighbor is trying to steal her identity. (And after seeing a glimpse of the kind of financial chaos that apparently exists in Barbie's life, I have to ask: Who would want it?) Rumor now has it that the reason we haven't seen Barbara Turdmurkle in just under a year is that she's had to spend some time away for psychiatric evaluation after leaving death threats on her neighbor's answering machine.

She is, as the medical establishment terms it, a Fruit Loop.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Got them Lower 48 Can't Sleep Blues

So we've gone "outside" as the Alaskans say and have returned to West Virginia, jetlagged, sore and covered in cat fur. The trip home was largely uneventful, which is how I like my 15 hour trips to be. Delta even went so far as to feed us, which I thought was mighty nice of them and a rare event in airlines these days. (I got no more than a couple bags of mini-pretzels and some tomato juice out of U.S. Air on the way up.) The food was good, even.

Our only major trouble out of the trip happened after we'd landed in Charlotte and discovered that we had no idea where Ashley's car was parked. Three weeks ago, when she first flew out, Ash left the little card telling her where she parked in her car on the premise that she wouldn't be able to find it anyway after three weeks. She would just remember where she parked. Long term parking lots, however, look very different in broad daylight than they do at 3 a.m. and we soon found that we were the last ones on the airport shuttle bus.

"If you can tell me where your car is parked, I'll take you there," the annoyed driver said.

"If I knew where my car was parked, I would have just gotten off there," Ashley responded.

After another loop around the lot and more running commentary about the wisdom of remembering where you parked from the driver, (Does this look like where you parked it? What about this? Does this look familiar? What about THIS anonymous ocean of cars?) Ashley told her, "There. There it is. I see my car. It's here. Stop here." Then, once we and our bags were deposited in the lot and the shuttle had driven away, Ashley said, "I have no idea where my car is. I just couldn't deal with any more from her." Fortunately, it wasn't far away and she soon located it and was gracious enough to come back and pick me up despite my poor attitude on the subject of losing one's car.

Right now, it's 1 a.m., but my jetlagged brain tells me that it's only 9 p.m., so here I sit a typin' away when I should have long since been in bed.

I've now had a chance to restructure the post card entries, revising them to reflect the dates on which they were taken and adding some text and a number of new pictures to boot. Have a look.

Postcards from Alaska 36

One of my last views of Alaska, taken around 9:55 p.m. My wife told me early on that her goal was for me to love Alaksa by the time we left. Looking out at those pointy, purple mountains, I realized that I truly did. It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen and I'm already looking forward to my next trip up.

Until then I will miss this place. I also fear that all other states have been ruined for me by its beauty. I only thought we had mountains in West Virginia.

Postcards from Alaska #35

Ah, we finally spotted a moose up close. Unfortunately, he was probably filled with sawdust. This guy was in an Alaska museum down town. Moose are huge and it just amazes me that all that bulk can stay balanced atop those awkward, skinny legs.



The carcas of the rarely seen, crafty and ever-elusive species, the Mountain Whale.

Postcards from Alaska #34

My major regret of our journey was a double slam. Midway through her medical conference, Ashley sent me a link for Cyrano's Playhouse in Anchorage. At first I didn't know why until I looked at their coming attractions page and saw my friend Suehyla El Attar's play The Perfect Prayer was being produced there. What was more, Suehyla would be attending several shows and giving talkbacks afterward from May 24 through May 28.

I've known Sue since high school and have acted with her many times. The Perfect Prayer was a play she had written an early version of in college and had produced at Mississippi State. I wasn't in the production, but she and I were both in the production of Triumph of the West that was paired with it. I thought it would be the greatest thing ever to show up for those talkbacks unannounced and ask her some dumb question just to see her lose her shit when she figured out it was me. Unfortunately, we quickly discovered that we were not going to be in Anchorage at any point during the time she was there. We were already going to be in the Fairbanks area and couldn't exactly jaunt back for a night in the RV. I phoned her up to see if she would be coming in any earlier, so we could maybe extend our time in the south before heading up, but it was not to be. She said she would have loved to have lost her shit at seeing a long lost costar such as myself planted in the audience. "I thought you people were all dead!" she would have said.

My other regret is that we didn't get to see her play at all. By the time we did return to Anchorage, on May 31, we had something of a crisis involving luggage and rapidly thawing fish, which took until well past 9 at night to resolve. I had to make do with seeing the theatre it was produced at and reading a glowing review of it posted in their window.