Hope blossoms, but this bloom smells like ass.

We hired a new employee yesterday by the name of Ms. D. (Not to be confused with former weekend warrior Miss D, who is a completely different and unrelated soul. In fact, if I'd known we were going to hire Ms. D when I first wrote about Miss D, I would have given Miss D a different name entirely, like Miss Nightranger, or something. I might still. Miss Nightranger is too good a name not to use. But I digress...)

Ms. D has been a recent addition to our friends of the "liberry" (and I don't mean our actual Friends of the "Liberry," though she would have been welcome there too). Over the past couple of months, she has come in to help us with some reorganization, refinishing and assembly projects that otherwise might have required a man.

For instance, Ms. D was brought in to strip, sand and revarnish four of our wooden patron tables after our former board member, Mrs. Day, attempted to refinish three of them by herself. When Mrs. Day returned the tables to us they were a goopy, blotchy, uneven mess and I'd have expected better results from a septet of stumptail maquaques armed only with their own feces and a hammer. The funny thing is, while Ms. D's refinishing job left the tables looking smooth, even and fantastic, it caused Mrs. A to worry that Mrs. Day would catch sight of them and know we had had all her crappy refinishing refinished. I told Mrs. A not to worry about it. After all, Mrs. Day is so out-of-touch with reality that she would most likely take one look at the refinished tables and then congratulate herself on doing such a good job with them. In fact, she’d probably even audibly note how much better they looked than she remembered. And, of course, that is EXACTLY. WHAT. HAPPENED. Then, after her self-congratulatory speech, Mrs. Day hauled away the remaining "fourth" table to give it an even shittier refinish, on the grounds that it didn't look as good as the other three identically refinished tables. But I digress again...

I'd suspected that Mrs. A, was considering hiring Ms. D because during the short time we'd known her she just seemed to click with the rest of us so well. I'd wager she's a bit older than Mrs. B and a bit younger than Mrs. A, so she gets all the references they drop. She’s artistic, craft-oriented, handy and could probably read Walter the Farting Dog aloud to four-year-olds with the best of them. (Not that Mrs. A will actually let us read Walter during storyhour—but, if she ever does, I have dibs, dammit!) Ms. D also possesses something of an inner-geek, allowing her to be fascinated by all things Fortean and fantasy/science-fiction genrey, so she's not too far off of the path from me. In fact, she gave me a stack of old Bud Plant catalogs just full of great stuff I've never heard of before. She's one of the fold.

Still, while I was pretty sure Mrs. A wanted to hire Ms. D, I didn't think she could justify it with Ms. S still hanging on by a claw. This very thought occurred to me when Mrs. A announced to us that the hiring of Ms. D was a done deal.

"She'll start as soon as Ms. S leaves,” Mrs. A finished.

I nearly fell over.

"Whoa! Ms. S is leaving?"

"Yeah,” Mrs. A said. “You didn't know that?"

"No!"

"Oh," Mrs. B said. "I forgot to tell you."

They then gleefully explained the details of the meeting between Mrs. A and Ms. S after the latter had secured her new job. (I’d only heard rumors of the details from Ms. S herself, at that point, when I'd asked her how her new job was going after noticing she looked particularly surly one afternoon. She'd explained much of the following, but left out the bit about having to leave.) Ms. S had approached Mrs. A and asked if we could work around her schedule at her new job, which normally let her off at 2:30 or so, but sometimes would require her to stay as late as 4:30, thus making any evening shift with us a mere two hours. Mrs. A, sensing a golden opportunity to get rid of Ms. S without actually firing her, explained that while we could accommodate some degree of flexibility, any other job she had would really need to be able to work with our schedule. We could put up with her new schedule, but only until the end of the month.

“Wow,” I said. “I thought that just meant she would hang on doing weekends only.”

Mrs. A seemed to consider this for a moment then shook her head. “No. I might do that, but this is too good an opportunity to pass up.”

Indeed.

That was yesterday.

Today was Ms. S's last day. She came in around 4p for her 4:30 to 7 closing shift. As much as I've railed against her, I found myself kind of sad over it. Even worse, I found myself more than a bit aprehensive about spending part of that final shift with her. Everyone else got to flee the building at 5, but I didn't leave until 6, giving me a good solid hour alone with her. This being the case, I left myself a huge stack of easy-readers to shelve, knowing she wouldn't want to do them. She didn't, so that whiled away a whole 10 minutes. The rest of the hour was spent chatting amiably enough in between helping patrons, shelving or otherwise doing our jobs. We didn't really talk about it being her last day, though she did ask if I was going to have to start working more weekends now. (I guess I might at that.) She also mentioned that she probably wouldn't come by as often, since the only reason she would have to come into the Tri-Metro area was to head to her other job at the fast food place.

Aw, hell, I thought. Now that she couldn't stay on here and at the school, she was going to have to keep the fast food gig as her second job. She hated that job.

None of this was my decision and still I felt awful about it. I had to keep reminding myself that with her finally gone, we'd at last be rid of an employee who recently locked herself out of the building while trying to empty the book return on a Saturday and had to rely on a patron with a cell phone to call Mrs. C and ask if she could come unlock the door and let her back in.

No, better still... we'd finally be shed of a co-worker who had gone onto the internet, learned the ending of the final Harry Potter book from a spoilers page and then willfully spoiled it for the first little girl who was lucky enough to find said book on our shelf on the VERY. DAY. IT. WAS. RELEASED. I know you don't believe that, but I tell you it happened! And granted, it's kind of a complicated ending to spoil, so she probably just told her whether or not Harry dies, or something. However, when the girl's father told me about it, some weeks later, I had no doubt he was telling the truth because Ms. S had tried to spoil the ending for me and a couple of patrons the night before the book was to be released and we only escaped hearing it from her then after I threatened and then rethreatened to stab her with a letter opener if she did. I digress, yet again...

And yet, even with those examples of dumbassity and evil in mind, I still felt awful.

At 6, I clocked out. I'd been dreading that moment because I didn't know exactly what I should say to Ms. S before leaving. It wasn't really a "We'll miss you!" or "I wish you didn't have to go," sort of moment, certainly. However, it was also not a "Have a nice life," or even a "Leave your keys on the desk... Oh, wait, sorry, you did that a couple weekends ago already," moment either.

Instead, it went like this:

ME— Well, I guess I'm headed out.

MS. S— Okay.

(Pause)

ME— (Smiles) You have fun teaching.

MS. S— Oh, I will. I will.

(Pause)

ME— (Considers giving her a goodbye hug, then decides against it) Thanks for putting up with me.

MS. S— No. Thank you for putting up with me. It took me a long time to learn all this.

(Super long pause)

ME— Okay.

At that point, some patrons thankfully entered the building and her attention was drawn away from the enormous awkward silence that was about to erupt and I was able to slip away like the coward I am.

I wish her well and hope she finds her niche in life. Goodbye, Ms. S.

Mr. B-Natural Slakes his Thirst for Righteous Vengeance with the "Liberry's" Blood

It's been a long time since we've had any trouble from Mr. B-Natural. Mostly he's been an ideal patron. He even came in recently and asked me if I would teach him how to save files to a CD ROM using his new laptop. I showed him how and he seemed quite friendly about it and far from his usual Grumpiest-Old-Man-in-All-the-World self.

Last week he got far grumpier.

Long-time readers may recall the saga of Mr. B-Natural and his beloved dog, Bubba. They might also recall the night to day transformation Mr. B-Natural underwent after he first acquired Bubba and began bringing him into the "liberry" as his emissary to the world. They might also recall how, three years back, Bubba brought a plague of fleas into the "liberry" and was subsequently banned from setting foot in the building.

At the time of the banning, Mr. B-Natural protested that Bubba didn't have fleas and staged a walkout over the matter, refusing to set foot in our building himself. After a few months of this, though, he realized that this was hardly punishing us so he came back. Occasionally, if Mrs. A was about, he would drop comments about how Bubba sure does miss the library and how he still doesn't have fleas. Mrs. A would only smile and tell him that we too missed Bubba and that we would love to come out to Mr. B-Natural's car and visit the dog sometime.

Over the past year, though, other dogs have begun to visit us. One of our patrons, Carrie, a frequent and very, very generous donor, began bringing her dog into the library. Granted, she was only there with the dog to briefly visit us or drop off a check and never to hang around, but there were several near-misses with Mr. B-Natural almost seeing the pooch. With Carrie being a massive donor (who actually made a huge donation in her dog's name; an event which prompted us to joke that when Bubba came up with anything approaching that amount he could come back too) we were a little hesitant to forbid her to bring her dog in.

Next up, a member of our board of directors, Mrs. Em, recently bought a puppy which she has insisted on bringing into the building despite the fact that she knows full well that animals are not allowed and that Mr. B-Natural will rain shit down on our heads were he to ever see it. I like her dog even less because it bit me, but, again, what are you going to do?

Then Mr. B-Natural did see Mrs. Em's dog.

Saw it several times, even.

In fact, for about a week running, Mr. B-Natural seemed to have developed the mutant ability to arrive at the "liberry" only when Mrs. Em was in-house with her dog. And, as before, he began dropping comments to Mrs. A about how the puppy would make a wonderful playmate for dear Bubba. Mr. B-Natural never got mad or raised a big stink, but he was understandably unhappy about it, as he has been for years now. Mrs. A tried to explain things to him by saying that the other dog was only passing through on business and was not hanging around for hours at a time like Bubba used to. Mr. B-Natural's reaction to this was to turn and walk out.

Mrs. A thought about this situation and decided that if she couldn't ban the dogs of donors and board-members, she couldn't very well ban Bubba. It was time to stop playing favorites. She announced to Mrs. C that we would need to change our policy to allow visits from dogs, provided they remained on the tiled area just inside the front doors. They would break the good news to Mr. B-Natural when next he visited

When I came in for work this past Friday, I saw a sign taped to the glass of our front door that read "Service Animals Only." I wondered what the story behind it was and soon the alphabet squad of Mrs.es A, B and C told me.

Mrs. A explained her decision to rescind Bubba's ban. However, before she could alert Mr. B-Natural to it, he'd phoned Mr. Hooter, the president of our board of directors, to raise hell about the veritable zoo we were letting run free in the "liberry." He insisted that if Bubba was banned all other animals should be banned as well, save for service animals. Furthermore, Mr. B-Natural wanted a signs put up to this effect and wanted the policy enforced for all parties. Mr. Hooter was in agreement.

"I can't blame him," I told Mrs. A upon the conclusion of the tale. "I would have done exactly the same thing in his position." Granted, there's the irony that if he'd kept his trap shut for another day or so he would have finally gotten his way and been able to bring Bubba back, but I completely see his perspective of the issue. It isn't fair to let other people bring dogs in and not him. And since he'd already complained to Mrs. A on any number of occasions, he felt he had no other course. Mrs. A said she saw his point too, but would have handled things differently had she been in his shoes.

"So, I guess we won't be seeing him for a few more months?" I said.

"Oh, no. He's been in three or four times since Wednesday," Mrs. B said.

"He keeps checking to make sure we have the sign up," Mrs. C added.

And, an hour or two later, Mr. B-Natural did arrive for some computing time. I made it a point to smile at him when he came in, hopefully communicating that I bear him no ill-will and am, for once, on his side.

Trout Fishing In America

Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine arrived for one of his daily research sessions. As I was logging him onto his computer he said, "I see you're back."

"Yep," I said, wondering where I'd been hiding that he hadn't seen me recently. No, I'd really like to know, cause I want to go back there and stay.

"I see you're back," he repeated.

"YEP," I repeated at a louder tone. Then I noticed Gene wasn't talking to me at all. He was talking to Mrs. Trout, who was seated on the opposite row of our computer station.

Before the advent of Gene, Mrs. Trout (and to a lesser extent, Mabel) had been our resident amateur geneal0gist. These days we see less and less of her, which is unfortunate because we prefer Mrs. Trout to Gene at a 29 to 1 ratio. In addition to being a sweet and grandmotherly lady, we primarily love Mrs. Trout because she keeps the mind-numbingly boring details of her geneal0gy work to herself and doesn't try to lecture about them to anyone who strays within five feet of her. Unfortunately for her, Gene seems to have figured out that they share a hobby.

From the circ desk, I could hear their entire conversation as Gene began expounding upon his latest research breakthroughs to Mrs. Trout. At one point, Mrs. Trout mentioned that she hadn't had much luck recently, at which point Gene inquired as to what online geneal0gy services she was using. She told him and he gave off a polite yet derisive snicker. His sources, I inferred, were far superior.

"What's your last name?" he asked.

Ah ha, I thought, now he was going to look her up and do her entire family history just to demonstrate how superior his online sources truly were.

"Well, it's my mother's people I'm researching," Mrs. Trout said.

"But what's your last name?" Gene said.

"My last name is my husband's last name," Mrs. Trout said gently. "It's my mother's people I'm looking for."

"But what's your last name?" Gene insisted.

Mrs. Trout finally told him and Gene launched into his search. Mrs. Trout then wrapped up her computer time, paid for her prints and departed swiftly thereafter.

Get out your tinfoil hat, folks

Mrs. A alerted me to the presence of a wingnut, yesterday. I actually witnessed the first and last bits of the story.

An unfamiliar-looking gentleman entered the "liberry," approached the circ desk, spied Mrs. A there and then, in hushed tones, asked her to help him find "the book on the Clintons."

"Which one?" Mrs. A asked. "We have several biographies of both Bill and Hillary."

The man seemed a little nervous, but said, "the... the Monica Lewinsky book."

Mrs. A lead him down to our biographies shelf and showed him where the various books on the subject were, including Monica's. After a short time, she came back to the circ desk and said something that I found pretty atypical for a long-time degreed librarian: "Would you get on Google and look up a list of the kings of Babylon?"

"The kings of Babylon?" I asked.

"It's for the gentleman over there," she said, pointing in the man's direction. She explained that he needed to find a list of the kings of Babylon so he could see how it relates to Bill and Hillary and, no doubt, their upcoming attempt to reestablish the empire stateside. Normally, we would look this information up in an encyclopedia or other credible reference source, but Mrs. A's patented raisin-cake-sense had gone off while talking to the man and she was pretty sure he'd be satisfied with a print out from the "innanet" and knew I could find one quicker than she could.

"Um, I've got the one off Wikipedia," I said. "It's possibly accurate."

"Just print it and give it to him."

I printed it and Mrs. A took it over and gave it to him free of charge.

After a while longer, the man returned to the circ desk with his Monica book. I already knew the answer to my first question.

"Can I scan your library card?"

"I don't have one."

Right.

I passed him an application for one, safe in the knowledge that he would fill it out only as far as it took for him to notice the Drivers License requirement, at which point I imagined the man would scream "HOMELAND SECURITY!" and make a break for the door. (It's happened before and he would hardly be the first to complain about the requirement.) However, the man filled out the form, wrote his drivers license number on it and allowed me to set him up with a patron record with no worries. He seemed very nice, well-mannered and content, a credit to the wingnut population.

Then again, what if he's right? I'm sure there are any number of conspiracy sites out there making Babylonian/Clintonian connections. In fact, as I've noted in the past, quite a few of the larger conspiracy sites I've seen before have featured advertising for Hillary's presidential campaign.

Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #88

SETTING: My "liberry." Fellow "liberry" ass., Ms. M, approaches the desk leading a five-year-old boy and his grandmother. Ms. M passes me our copy of Walter the Farting Dog.

MS. M— This young man would like to know if this would be a good book for him to read.

(I look down at the little boy, who beams back up.)

ME— You have somebody who can read this to you?

BOY— Uh huh.

(I look back to the grandmother to make sure she's seen the title and is still willing to read it. She smiles and nods)

ME— Then it's perfect.

(Go with God, my child.)

Hope Springs (a.k.a. "Those poor children. Those poor, poor children.")

Eternal Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S made an enormous announcement last week: She's found a new job!

My heart leapt at the news! Could it be? Could it truly be? Were we about to have our dreams realized? I nearly danced with joy. Finally, finally, we were getting rid of the last remaining greenhorn!

Then Ms. S dashed my hopes by clarifying that her new employment would allow her to finally leave her much-hated fast-food job and concentrate entirely on her new gig and the "liberry" gig.

And what, I hear you askin', has some poor, unfortunate bastard, employer agreed to pay her money to do for them?

Teach.

No, you heard me right. They've hired her as a teacher of first-graders at an area private-school.

As she told me that news, I came to within a quarter inch of blurting out "Holy shit!" right in her face. Instead, I just grinned and congratulated her and inwardly prayed that the poor tykes survived.

Her plan now is to work her teaching job from 8 to 3, then roll on over here and finish out the day with us. I sure hope things don't work out like that, though. If Ms. S thinks fast food is hard, wait `til she gets 10 six-year-olds hopped up on sugar running around her for hours at a stretch. She'll be so tired afterward that her previous levels of "liberry" laziness will seem pale by comparison to what she pulls when she rolls on over to do an afternoon shift.

Though I've not spoken with her about it, I suspect our boss Mrs. A knows this as well. I also suspect she sees the golden opportunity to finally get rid of Ms. S without resorting to a firin'. Word on the street is that she's told Ms. S that any other job she takes will need to find a way to work around our schedule, or things just won't work out on this end.

That may sound like good news, but I somehow don't see this being enough to dislodge her. Instead, she'll probably hang on as a weekend warrior with an occasional weekday afternoon shift.

Sometimes I really feel for our patrons

Just when I thought she was really starting to get the hang of the job, eternal Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S takes it down a notch. This time I witnessed the behavior myself from the perspective of a patron.

The wife was out of reading material so she and I zipped over to the "liberry" this afternoon to grab some new stuff. After the wife made her choices, we headed for the circ-desk where there were two other patrons already waiting while Ms. S stood in front of the FAX machine, her back to us. The FAX machine was busy chewing through a single page. As it neared the end of that page, Ms. S picked up another page from a small stack in front of her and fed it into the FAX machine's input chute. She waited for the previous page to be spit out of the exit chute before settling in to watch as the next page was slowly—ever-so-slowly—scanned to be sent out over the phone line.

Meanwhile, there was a man in front of me with a single book to be checked out, his library card resting atop it, and a lady who I assumed was the one waiting for the FAX to go through. The FAX was chewing so slowly that Ms. S had plenty of time to turn and help either of the people at the desk, or us, but instead she just kept waiting for the page to go through so she could insert the next one.

Mind you, while our FAX machine is indeed older than dirt and takes a phenomenal amount of time to do anything, it is usually capable of handling multiple pages per session, feeding them through page by page just fine. Ms. S was determined to be vigilant about it, though, and make absolutely certain that it did. She stood and waited until the second page went almost all the way through then stuck the next one in.

"Is she retarded or is she doing this on purpose?" the wife whispered to me.

"A little of both, I think."

A third patron arrived at the desk to stand beside the man in front of us. They both intently watched Ms. S.

As soon as the third page began its glacier crawl through the guts of our FAX machine, Ms. S walked away from it, toward the couple at the desk, then did a 90 degree turn at the last second and went into the staff workroom where she stooped over to drag the cardboard box filled with Summer Reading t-shirts back behind the circ-desk. I deduced that the second lady, standing to my right, was probably waiting for her kid's t-shirt and end of the year goody bag. She would have to wait a while longer, though, because Ms. S didn't even open the box. Instead, she stood up and resumed her station at the FAX machine, which had reached the half-way mark on the page it was chewing through.

"She's doing this on purpose," the wife said.

"No, she just has no customer-service skills whatsoever," I said.

In total, at least three minutes passed during the FAXing process. Then, when the fourth and final page of the document was almost finished, the FAX machine gave of one of its patented tinny wails, at which point Ms. S cried, "NO! NO! NO!" She turned to the man and woman in front of us.

"They all went through this time, until the last page," she said. Apparently this was at least her second attempt at sending this document, the previous attempts having been failures due to the FAX machine's refusal to send the pages without a line error.

"Well, that's okay. You can go on and help these people," the lady at the desk said.

Ms. S slowly turned her head and appeared to notice us for the first time. She turned to the younger woman who'd been standing there longer and asked the names of her children. She then fished their shirts and goodie bags from the cardboard box and gave them to the woman. Then she turned to us and began checking out our books. (And, yes, I did have my library card and used it.)

"Um, is there something wrong with the FAX machine that you can't just send all the pages at once?" I asked.

"Her paper is too thick," Ms. S said. "It keeps pulling through four at a time so I have to stand there and watch it."

I just shook my head, gathered up our books and left.

As irritating as this situation was, there may yet be some "good" news to report on this front...

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

Stupid Little Letters

Mr. Little Stupid has been a far more frequent visitor as of late. I'd noticed that his visits had been increasing, but now he's discovered something new to do with the "innanet" and it's captured his facination, so he's in for at least one long visit every day.

I really miss the old days when he barely knew how to use the computer, had to be taught and retaught how to do the most basic of functions and, when he did get it to work, only wanted to print off poetry written by victims of the Columbine shootings. These days, he's mostly self-sufficient in the use of the "innanet" and spends his time cruising MySpac3, printing out the profiles of young ladies and, apparently, corresponding with them. And by "young ladies," I mean college seniors at best, probably no less than highschool seniors at worst. This might be okay if he were, say, 19 years old, but he's pushing 40 if he's a day. Kiiiiiinda creepy.

Now, ideally, I shouldn't know ANYTHING about what Mr. Little Stupid is doing on the internet; I try my best NOT know what people are up to over there. Mr. Little Stupid, however, doesn't seem to have any embarassment issues with the staff seeing his prints or the seemingly underage girls featured on them, so I've been given enough evidence to piece together what he's doing. In fact, when one of our computers turned out to have defaulted to a printer choice other than the actual networked printer, he called me over to look at his screen to figure out what was wrong. I walked over and there she was, a beautiful smiling girl who will probably be carded while attempting to buy beer for at least another three years and maybe beyond. And it's not as if Mr. Little Stupid is intentionally flaunting this material to us for some kind of thrill; he really doesn't have THAT much on the ball. I think he just genuinely and innocently doesn't realize that what he's doing might be viewed by others as at least slightly inappropriate.

Once Mr. Little Stupid has printed out his profile of choice, he takes it over to one of our tables and composes a letter to the owner of the profile in longhand. Being just this side of literate, he often needs help with spelling. One memorable day, he came to the circ desk on three separate occasions to ask me how to spell the words "relocate," "willing," and "anywhere" in that order. I told him. Later he asked for confirmation that the word "care" was spelled "car," which I had to correct him on.

When he gets all his i's crossed and his t's dotted, he returns to sign up for a computer to type all that into an email and, presumably, fires it off.

What's annoying me the most, however, is MySpac3 itself. Half the time our filtering software blocks it entirely, forcing us to dig out the filter's username and password and jump through the hoops necessary to override it. When it isn't blocked, though, sometimes MySpac3 will print a given screen's worth of material and cut off the right side of the text due to the sidebar on the left taking up too much room. I kept telling Mr. Little Stupid that needed to find a PRINTABLE VERSION function, but he couldn't, forcing me to come over and see what he had on his screen in order to find it myself. I couldn't find it either. All the while, though, Mr. Little Stupid kept insisting that if we would just put him on his favorite computer at the end of the row it would print just fine.

"No, it won't," I kept telling him. "It's not a problem with the computer, it's a problem with MySpac3." Then I'd grit my teeth some more and try to find the damnable PRINT VERSION link until Mr. Little Stupid's next attempt to tell me that his favorite computer never gives him problems. This cycle occurred three times before I finally said, "All right. If you'd like to use the other computer, I'll put you on the other computer. But it's going to cut off the side of your text unless you print ONLY the text."

I stomped over to his favorite computer and logged it on for him, then stomped away to the circ desk to await my victory at the printer chute. Of course, the filtering software on his new computer kicked in and it took the efforts of Ms. M and then eventually me to override it for him. Then, when he printed, everything did indeed print fine, just as he'd predicted.

I continue to hate it when the patrons are right.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #87

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library?

BIRTHDAY LADY— Do you know when that baseball player with the Yankees who just died was born?

ME— (Reigning state champion of sports cluelessness) I'm not sure who that is.

BIRTHDAY LADY— The name is spelled R-I-Z-Z-U-T-O.

(I Google up a selection of pages referring to him. The first I see is a NY Times article that lists the year of his birth as 1917.)

ME— Looks like 1917.

BIRTHDAY LADY— Yes, but when was he born?

ME— (Slowly) Nineteen seventeen.

BIRTHDAY LADY— Yes, but what was his birthday?

(I suddenly think, "Oh, yeah. That's why she always calls, hence her name. Duh." So I look to the Wikipedia article on Rizzuto, which lists his birthday as September 25, 1916.)

ME— Um, well, this says September 25, 1916.

BIRTHDAY LADY— The paper said 1917.

ME— Yeah. That's what the NYTimes page said too. I think I'd go with what the paper said.

BIRTHDAY LADY— Then that's what I'll put.

(Wikipedia has since been revised to say 1917.)

(Greasy) Butts

I returned from shelving in the fiction stacks to find our circ-desk had a line of five patrons standing at it. My fellow "liberry" ass., Mrs. B was helping them, so I knew they would be through quick enough, but upon seeing the situation I decided to help out.

The first four people in the line consisted of a mom and her three kids checking out their limit in books. The fifth patron in line was Mr. Butts, appearing very annoyed at having to wait in line.

I knew it would take even the efficient Mrs. B a good while to process thirty plus books, and despite how Mr. Butts treated me last time he was in, I walked behind the desk, moved over to the less busy side of it and caught his eye, giving him the international library sign language for "I can help you over here."

Mr. Butts scowled and walked around the family to my side of the desk then tossed a thick book onto the countertop with such force that it slid across it almost all the way to my edge of it. He then flashed me a deeply pissed expression, turned and left the building.

Apparently, Mr. Butts hadn't been waiting to check out a book at all, but had been waiting to return one. He was probably irritated that he actually had to come inside and wait in line to do this, as we keep our book drop out front locked during normal library hours. And the book in question was one of his much-sought-after Michener's, which probably put him in an even more pissy mood when remembering our last encounter on the subject. I hoped he was happy to learn that we've now returned our entire collection of Micheners on the shelves and no longer have any in remote storage, but I suspect he wasn't.

As I picked up the book to check it in, I felt something slick on the back cover. The plastic book jacket was coated in some sort of grease, as though the book had been resting recently on a packet of stale old french fries. Further evidence of this could be seen in the greasy track the book had left on its trip across the circ-desk. Ewww!

I quickly ran for our Windex and cleaned it all up, taking care to check whether any grease had had found its way onto the pages of the book itself. Unfortunately, it hadn't, and the book jacket was easilly cleaned, otherwise I would have had an excuse to phone Mr. Butts to alert him to his grease-damage and the amount he would have then owed us for a new hardback Michener of the same title. I'm sure he would have been thrilled.

One Thousand in the Can

This is the 1000th post of...

Actually, that milestone was probably passed some time back, due to the number of posts I've either deleted, drafted but decided not to post, posted then returned to draft form or have drafted but have yet to post. However, it's as good an estimate as any, I suppose, and is in the ballpark of accurate, so I'm calling this the 1000th.

Volume 2 begins shortly.

That is all.

Mother Hover

When the lady who I quickly came to know as Mother Hover entered the "liberry," I didn't recognize her. She could have been any nameless, faceless, middle-aged lady out for a book. I paid her little mind as she began moving around the room, leisurely browsing. Meanwhile, I shelved books, checked shelving-slips and attended to “liberry” duties that didn’t necessarily require me to be at the circulation desk.

After about 20 minutes, a few selections in hand, Mother Hover attained the look about her of a lady who was ready to check out. (You know the look; kind of contented, body aimed generally in the direction of the circulation desk, feet starting to move, etc.) I stopped what I was doing and headed for the circ desk to assist her toward this goal.

As Mother Hover approached, I picked up my barcode scanner in preparation, but at the last second she veered off, having spotted something interesting across the room. I thought this would be a momentary pause in the checkout process, so I waited. And waited. After nearly a minute, it seemed clear that she was firmly engaged exploring a new section she'd not noticed before, so I put down my scanner and started to return to what I had been doing, away from the desk. Of course, as soon as I stepped from behind the confines of the circ desk, Mother Hover turned and resumed her previous course, causing me to nearly break my neck trying to turn around to help her once again.

I returned to my station by the barcode scanner, only to find that as soon as Mother Hover got within a four foot proximity of the desk she spotted some new item of interest on the other side of our main room and hovered away to read more copy from the inside of another dust jacket.

I was irritated. I became even more irritated when this sequence played itself out yet again a minute later.

Sensing a behavior pattern, I began limiting my productivity to desk-related issues, such as phoning patrons for books on hold. Of course, whenever I'd pick up the phone and start to dial, here she'd come again. I'd hang up the phone, reach for the barcode scanner only to find Mother Hoever had suddenly been distracted, magpie-like, by some glimmering bit of book wrap across the room and had hovered off in that direction. Dammit!

After quite a while, Mother Hover stopped hovering and physically set her books upon the desk. She then hauled out a massive red wallet, in which she began to dig for her card. And let me tell you, this was a wallet that would have impressed the Peruvian Incas with its tiered use of space. It had at least 16 different pockets where cards and other sundry bits of paper could be stuffed and each of those pockets was packed full. Unfortunately, none of its many pockets seemed to contain a library card, a fact that was only discovered after a full three minutes of excavation in which she dug everything out of each pocket, then put everything back, then redug everything out of each of them again. All the while, Mother Hover kept saying things like, "Well, I might not have a card... I know I had a card... I cleaned out my wallet a little while back..." and, the ever-popular, "You can just look me up by name, right?"

"No."

"Well, I might have to get a new card." DIG DIG DIG. "What does it look like again? It's red, right?"

I showed her an example of one of our decidedly non-red cards.

"Oh, no. I never had one of those," she said.

And, it turns out, she had not. Even now, nigh on two and a half years since we got our new circulation software and ditched all the old patron records, she'd still not visited us and aquired a new card. So I gave her an application and set her up with one. I'm not exactly sure how she was able to wedge the new card into her wallet, as it was clearly over-capacity, but hopefully she filed it somewhere she'll notice it when next she hovers in for a visit.

Dear Job-Seeking Patron...

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

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

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

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

Your super best friend forever,

--da juicemeister

Dear Caffiene Addict Patron...

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

Yours most sincerely and without malice,

--juice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your swell pal,

--juice

Dear Patrick McGoohan...

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

That was your ending?

Must have been some really good weed, dude.

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

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

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

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

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

--juice

Dear BBC America...

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

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

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

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

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

To put it another way, I was robbed.

By you.

And you now owe me.

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

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

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

Oh, and more Red Dwarf, please.

That, I believe, should do nicely.

Yours forever and ever,

--juice

Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #86

SETTING: My "Liberry." A patron approaches the circ-desk from the direction of our upstairs nonfiction room. He wordlessly drops a heavy paperback book about French history onto the circulation desk and slides it toward me. He then slides a well-folded overdue notice after it. He raises an eyebrow.

ME— You found it on the shelf, didn’t you?

MAN— Right up on the shelf. I knew I brought it back.

ME— Guess I’d better check it in for you, then.

MAN— I guess you should.

ME— Sorry about that.

MAN— No problem.

(I hate it when the patrons are right.)

A Poop in Hand is Worth Two in the House?

As I've reported, a couple times before, in the past I've had problems during spring and summer months with birds flying into my home through my open back door. Today I had a visit by an animal of a different sort.

Earlier this morning, I left my office and was walking toward the kitchen when I spied a small link of poop on the floor near the laundry room. It was a cat-sized link, so I deduced that it had been stuck on the cat's butt when she exited the litter box in the nearby bathroom. It probably hung there, dangling from a single strand of human hair that she'd eaten, and had been scraped off onto the floor once she'd discovered it. I got some tissue, gathered the link, dumped it in the toilet and went about my day.

Later in the morning, I decided to step out and enjoy the sun on the deck when I noticed several more turds on the floor near the open back door. It's not likely that that many turds had stuck to the cat's ass, so we must have had a visitor. My guess is that the additional poops were deposited by the friendly dog across the road who has been known to climb the deck steps for visits.

E = M.F. ^2

Some amazing colossal asshat turned in our copy of Einstein's Dreams riddled with pencil marks and mathematical equations.

On almost every single one of its 179 pages there are marks, usually in the form of underlined words, phrases set off in brackets, page numbers ticked to remind this bookmark-deprived MENSA-candidate which pages had already been read, occasional pen marks, and at the end of several of its chapters, or in any amount of blank page space otherwise available, there are scribbled equations to be found.

Genius that I am, I checked the book out to myself so I could take it home and better study these scribblings for reporting here. Unfortunately, I didn't first use our circulation system's capability to look up the last patron to have checked out the book before I checked it out to myself. Now I'm the last person to have checked it out, so we may never know the name of the jerk who defaced our book.

Some of us are just too smart for our own good.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #85

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

TEENAGE GIRL— I need to... um... I have some books and I... um... I need to... um... re... um... re... I need to get them again.

ME— Okay. Can I have your library card number, please?

TEENAGE GIRL— Um... I don't have it.

ME— I'm sorry, but I'll need your library card number to renew them for you.

TEENAGE GIRL— They were... um... checked out on my mom's card. I don't have it.

ME— Then you'll need to get your mom to call later with her card number and we can renew them for you.

TEENAGE GIRL— Um... okay.

(Minutes Pass)

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

TEENAGE GIRL'S MOM— Yes, my daughter just called about renewing some books and I'm calling to give you my library card number.

ME— Okay.

(Wait)

(Wait)

(Wait)

ME— Can I have your library card number?

TEENAGE GIRL'S MOM— Hang on a sec, I don't have it yet. You answered the phone too fast.

The Secret Identity of Ron the Ripper ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 5)

The time has come to tell the tale.

Some years back, on an otherwise normal day, I decided to fill my water bottle from our drinking fountain. The fountain is located at the far end of our reference/computer hall—a narrow passage where our reference books are shelved, near our three public-access computers, which are in turn in close proximity to not only the fountain but also our most-unfortunately-placed public restroom beneath the stairs. So I walked from our front room, through the children's room and was about to enter the reference hall when an unsettling and familiar odor hit my nose.

Oh, dear Lord, no!

I rounded the corner of the hall and nearly ran headlong into Ron the Ripper. Ron looked guilty and amused at the same time, but Ron always looks guilty and amused so this was nothing too suspicious. What was suspicious was that Ron and his Unobstructed Doors aide were coming from the direction of our restroom beneath the stairs. And following along behind them was the thick, yet invisible cloud of ass-stench I'd detected seconds before.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, please, no.

Hesitantly, I passed them by and waded through the fumes toward the restroom. There could be no doubt that Ron had befouled our restroom, but the actual degree of befoulment was what had me worried.

Please, please, please, I prayed, please, let him at least have flushed!

Alas, the answer to my prayer was "No." What I found within the bowl of our toilet was yet more evidence on a mounting pile, one which would prove that two of our most notorious rogues were actually one and the same person. Ron the Ripper, you see, had a secret identity. Ron the Ripper was none other than... the Serial Shitter.

I first became aware of the Serial Shitter shortly after I took my job with the "liberry" in 2001. The Serial Shitter, I was told, was an anonymous soul who frequently had foul, unholy and always unflushed poo-festivals in our restroom and did so with such frequency and apparent glee that it had to have been done on purpose. About twice a month, usually while cleaning up at the end of the day, one of the staff would discover the Serial Shitter's "calling card" plastered all around the inside of our toilet. For you see, it was apparently the Serial Shitter's fondest joy to park his keister on our bowl and vent his bowels so explosively that the resulting spray barely even reached the water but instead splattered onto the interior wall of the bowl like turd-stucco. And because the Serial Shitter never EVER flushed, this turd-stucco would sit there, sometimes for hours, would dry and then would NOT come off without a big ass toilet-brush, a liberal amount of Clorox Cleanup, ten minutes of effort and complete privacy so as not to soil the sensitive ears of our patrons with the streams of cursing spewed forth by whoever had to clean it up. Son of a bitch, we hated the Serial Shitter!

And, oh, the stench! Sweet merciful Krishna on a bicycle, the stench could be terrible! The trouble was, it was also stealth stench, rarely reaching the circ-desk. If we didn't go back near the restroom for a while, we might not know of the turd stucco's existence. However, we soon learned that when our usual computer addicts began making for the door, something foul was afoot.

It took us a long time to start piecing together the clues as to the true identity of the Serial Shitter. We really really wanted to know who it was, so we could finally have someone one of us could grab by the shirt collar and scream "FLUSH, DAMN YOU, FLUSH!" while another of us soaked them in a glossy coat of Lysol.

After cleaning up the Serial Shitter's mess for the fourth time one month, I decided to put an end to the mystery and put on my detective cap. The Shitter's fecal hobby was definitely the result of an unhinged mind, so I began suspecting our more unhinged patrons. Unfortunately, that's a sizable portion of our patron population.

I considered that it might be Mr. B-Natural, a man who was, back then, pretty much dedicated to doing things he thought would annoy the library staff, such as sneaking in coffee, signing his name upside down on the computer sign in sheet and generally being the grumpiest old man in all the world. This didn't seem to be his style though, since he always made certain we knew when he was trying to annoy us.

Mr. Big Stupid was another suspect. He was often on the computers and looked to be the kind of man who could tear up a toilet, but I could never place him at the scene during any of the Shitter-Event-Horizons.

The Untalented Mr. Ripley, Mr. B-Natural's arch-enemy, was also on the computers quite a bit in those days, but as strange as he was I just couldn't picture his skinny butt having the capacity for the sheer volume of material we were seeing.

I even briefly suspected Chester the (potential) Molester, but while he did spend time near the computers it was only time spent between opportunities to cruise the children's room.

The more I thought about it, though, the more it seemed that the only person who was in house on the same days as and before the incidents occurred was Ron the Ripper. It fit his personality too, for Ron enjoyed doing everything with gusto, be it ripping pages from our magazines, to caveman grunting to, most likely, taking a shit. Our next move, I determined, was to keep watch on the toilet when we knew he was in house, make sure it was spotless and then do a quick recheck after he used it to prove he was the Shitter. If we could catch him in the act of leaving that shit behind, we could force his Unobstructed Doors aide to pay attention, do his job and actually make Ron flush the toilet.

Alas, the confrontation was never to come. The particular aide Ron was with the day they barely escaped quit his job, or quit Ron, soon after. Ron was notorious for burning out aides and this guy was just one in a long line. Subsequent aides didn't bring Ron to the "liberry" very often and we had no more incidents of serial shitting for many months. In fact, we saw Ron almost none at all for many months (further cementing the proof). The next time I saw him, he had lost a lot of weight and seemed on a much more even mental keel. I think his overseers must have found the magic combination of meds to mellow him out. The mischievous gleam that had been ever-present in his eye was replaced by something much more akin to what you see in Malcolm McDowell's eyes at the end of A Clockwork Orange.

Oh, we've had restroom incidents akin to the Serial Shitter since—some so horrifically impressive that we were led to question our original theories about his identity—but by and large the Serial Shitter is no more.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness IV: Mrs. Quaalude ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 4)

The patron known as Mrs. Quaalude is actually one of the nicest people you'd ever care do deal with and is certainly not a "rogue" per se. She is however a difficult person to deal with in that everything takes three times as long to explain to her due to her brain seeming to be in a fog. I don't know that Mrs. Quaalude is necessarily medicated, but it would sure explain a few things. Not only does it take longer for her to understand things being said to her, it takes her a long time to communicate to others because her speech is very... very... slow... and... her... voice... so... very... very... low... and... tranquil... like...a slower... female version... of the... Hal 9000. You can feel yourself... getting... drowsy, just talking to her... as though the condition is... psychically... contagious.

While Mrs. Quaalude does check out the occasional book, her real claim to infame is as a computer patron. She used to come in weekly to check her email or otherwise surf the net, but for a very long time she needed assistance doing so with nearly every aspect of it. Often that assistance came in the form of her daughter, who would roll her eyes and explain to her mother, for the umpteenth time, over the course of 15 minutes, how to find H0tmail. A few months later, though, her daughter went all goth-chick on us, which meant that while she would come to the library she was way too cool to hang with mom anymore, so it was up to the "liberry" staff to help Mrs. Quaalude navigate the mysteries of the web. To Mrs. Quaalude's credit, our lessons did eventually take and by the time she stopped showing up as often she rarely needed help at all.

I know for a fact I've had several noteworthy and frustrating experiences with Mrs. Quaalude, but because I failed to write them down, (or perhaps because of her psychically contagious brain fog), I cannot relate them here even from memory.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness III: Narcoleptic Nelson ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 4)

Much like his name suggests, Narcoleptic Nelson was a genuine narcoleptic. At any given point in the day, his head might nod forward and he would find himself asleep. This no doubt caused problems for him while walking and driving, but we only ever witnessed him nodding off while he was using our patron computers. Each week, on the same day, Narcoleptic Nelson would arrive to use a computer and the staff would begin making wagers as to how long it would take the man to surrender to the sweet grasp of Morpheus. It usually took no longer than 10 minutes.

Narcoleptic Nelson's computer sleeping habits were really not a problem for us otherwise. No, the only hassles we endured as a result were usually doled out by other patrons, who didn't appreciate having to wait to use a computer that was currently occupied by someone who was fast asleep. The usual complainant in such cases was our old friend Parka, however, a person whose happiness in life we couldn't have cared less about. Our point to him was twofold: A) while we don't encourage it, we technically have no policies against sleeping in the library; and B) we give each of our patrons half an hour on the computer and if they choose to use their time asleep it's all the same to us. Parka was not amused. We were.

Narcoleptic Nelson has not been seen in quite some time. I hope this means he's off being the subject of an intensive sleep study, rather than the less-pleasant notion that he crashed his car on the way there.

Footnotes from the Quattuorvirate of Lameness II: T-Shirt Man ("LOST" ROGUES WEEK DAY 3)

A similar character to Sad Sack, T-Shirt Man basically fulfilled exactly the same patron role—that of a quiet, loner, oddball, given to behaving himself at all time—albeit wearing a white T-shirt, year round.

But why?

For a long time I suspected that T-Shirt Man chose to wear only white T-shirts because he couldn't afford any other kind of shirt. However, in this day and age, t-shirts come in a wide variety of styles and colors, all for pretty much the same price. This guy could choose a different color for every day, but he sticks with white. This has lead me to theorize that T-Shirt Man, much like his fellow patron, Fatty Manchild, must have spent a goodly number of years in a coma following a period of arrested fashion development.

T-Shirt Man's fashion arrest may have come after viewing the classic biker gang flick, The Wild One. In this theory, T-Shirt Man went to see The Wild One and really thought the look sported by the young Marlon Brando—white ringer t-shirt stretched over his frame, biker jacket, hat, angst in eyes—was super keen. Unable to find himself a proper ringer T-shirt, biker jacket or hat, though, T-Shirt Man settled for plain ol' white and began sporting the look as best he could manage. Then, following a tragic 15 mph moped accident, T-Shirt Man was sent into a coma and awoke 30 years later to find himself in a world he hadn't made, fashion sense forever frozen that moment in his youth. And his vanilla, white-clad, "Mild" One saga continues to this day during his rare visits to the "liberry."

(T-Shirt man also disinguishes himself from Sad Sack by his ability to use a computer, no doubt prowling ebay for bulk deals on more of his namesake.)

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.