It's not Delivery, it's... well, okay, it IS Delivery (Tales of the "Good" Patrons Week: Day 4)

Any week devoted to tales of "good" patrons must include my favorite patron family of all time, the Asners.

Yep, no sooner had I issued myself the challenge of chronicling the nice folk who visit us than we were paid a visit by Ma Asner and her middle daughter. They approached the desk and politely, silently, waited for me to finish helping another patron. When at last I was able to turn to them, the daughter smiled and explained that she was selling pizza kits for her school and wondered if I would like to have a look at their catalog.

Now, unlike my personal telemarketer policy, I have a personal school-sales policy of buying from one out of every two kids who come to my door to sell me something. (I think they're catching on, cause they keep coming in pairs.) I spent too much time going door to door myself as a yout' to become the cranky, cheap-ass neighbor every one hates. (Plus, I probably still owe the March of Dimes money.) However, it's one thing to be kind and generous to neighborhood kids, but buying stuff at a workplace as public as mine is very dangerous. You get a reputation for buying fund-raising stuff there and suddenly you're overrun with kids selling $5 Hershey Bars and $8 popcorn balls.

However, because young Miss Asner was the one who asked and because I'm still charmed by all those times she said "God bless you" with her sisters as they departed the building, I readily accepted her catalog and spent $33 on pizza and breadstick 3-pack kits. Miss Asner was overjoyed and promised delivery to me within a few weeks.

When Bad Patrons Go Good: Take 1 (Tales of the "Good" Patrons Week: Day 3)

I've complained before about our annoying patron called Ms. Green. I should stress, though, that Ms. Green is not a Rogue, per se. She's never seemed to be a bad human being by our estimation. She's never qualified as mean, nasty or antagonizing to any degree. However, she has certainly proven difficult to deal with due to her ability to drive the staff to the edge of madness as we attempt very simple, standard "liberry" transactions with her only to have her question us at every turn. It's not that she doesn't trust what we're telling her, it's that she just doesn't seem to understand it. She's not dumb at all, but just doesn't quite "get" a lot of things that we take for granted as being pretty obvious.

In recent months, however, Ms. Green and I have come to a bit of an understanding. I came to understand that the major sources of friction between us are that her personality type and mine aren't the most compatible (she being a brassy, outgoing, semi-oblivious and often prone to distraction Yankee; and me, not so much) and that her perspective as a patron and mine as a "liberry" ass. don't always intersect. I also came to understand that Ms. Green has never seemed to hold a grudge about the times I've become annoyed with her or, more importantly, the times I've allowed it to show. In fact, while I may have been oblivious to it for a long while, Ms. Green has always been very nice and friendly to me, regardless of my behavior. Once I was able to wrap my head around this, my problems with her just sort of melted away and I suddenly found myself being friendly and nice back.

The last several time Ms. Green has been in for a visit, we've actually chatted for goodly stretches of time. And not chatted in that "I'm making small talk with a patron because it's polite and they won't go away" sort of chatted, but more of a genuine, unforced, friendly exchange. I tell you, I'm as shocked as anyone.

Oh, sure, Ms. Green still has idiosyncrasies that can be annoying, but given my shift in perspective, I just don't take much offense at them and pretty much roll right along. And Ms. Green, for her part, has actively taken to being less annoying by doing things like taking her cell phone calls outside and not allowing her phone to blare on for ages. It's freaky.

A further example of how helpful she has become came last night. Ms. Green was in with her kids, they browsed, we chatted, they browsed some more and toward closing time Ms. Green asked if we could make a couple of photocopies for her. Sure thing. Only she wound up not having the 50 cents in her pocket to pay for them then and there and asked if she could pay us tomorrow. Annoying? Eh, sure, but she's made this request before and I knew she was good for it. We let folks slide on paying like this all the time and they almost always pay us back.

Closing time arrived, Ms. Green and her kids checked out and left. While I was waiting for a few last minute computer stragglers, I went ahead and unlocked the book return and locked the front doors. Soon the computer users had finally left, though not before one of them had gone into my perfectly cleaned restroom, pissed up the urinal and didn't flush. I had discovered this act of bad-patronage, remedied it and was just leaving the restroom when I spied Ms. Green standing again at the circ desk. That didn't make sense, though, because I'd just locked the front door.

"Oh, here's the 50 cents I owed you," she said, placing it on the counter.

"How did you just..." I started.

"How did I what?" she began. Then light dawned in her eyes. "Oh. You thought you'd locked the front door, didn't you?"

"Yeah," I said. "Wow. It's a good thing you came back."

Sure enough, I'd managed to lock one of the doors but must have turned the key the wrong way in the other. That could have ended very badly for us, because despite all the signs declaring our hours, and despite the absence of interior lights, nearly every patron who approaches that door when we are indeed closed has to try both handles and yank on them for a while before the message finally sinks in.

Whew! Several strikes in the positive column for Ms. Green. I may have to move her to the Sundry Others column, or maybe add a "Good" Patrons column, just to make it up to her.

Brother Trucker (Tales of the "Good" Patrons Week: Day 2)

Brother Trucker is a good patron I'm thankful to have around. As you might have guessed, he's a long-haul trucker and as such enjoys having something to occupy him when he's on the road. So he comes to us for books on tape and CD.

I've actually written about him before, detailing the first time I recall meeting him. At the time I didn't like him very much, because after turning in a stack of Robert Ludlum ILLed books on tape he told me to "gimme the next four" and started to walk away. I was offended that he thought this was how the ILL system worked, but it turned out he was right. He and ILL Queen Mrs. C had already made arrangements that once he found an author he liked she would just keep ordering new books on tape for him, heading right down the list of what the system had to offer, four at a time. It was a bit unorthodox as far as things typically go around here, but it worked.

Since then, I've come to realize that Brother Trucker is indeed a valued patron. Not only does he come in for his ILLs when called, but he pays the postage for them as well! Hardly any other ILL patrons bother to do this. He's worked his way through quite a number of authors this way and is constantly on the lookout for new ones to add into the mix. Mrs. C keeps detailed records of what she's already requested, so as not to do the same ones over. Brother Trucker seems to appreciate all the work that goes into this, which is possibly why he always pays the postage.

And being such a long-time, solid patron, Brother Trucker has become something of a friend of the "liberry." He knows Mrs. A, B and C and they him. Often he hangs around for a few minutes to chat with us, telling us the latest goings on in his family and listening to the latest on the staff's. In fact, I bet if we ever wanted to have a rumble with any of our Rogues, Brother Trucker would be there with a tire-iron to back us up. For you see, being at the desk for such stretches, he's also seen our job and some of the annoying things that accompany it.

For instance, Brother Trucker came in to turn in some old ILLs this week. We didn't have any new ones for him, so he went to see what was in our own audio collection. He was gone for a bit and since the desk was empty I stepped into the staff workroom and into the staff restroom to have myself a wee. I was only in there for 30 seconds or so, but when I came out there was Brother Trucker standing at the desk, waiting. He grinned and said, "It's Murphy's law: if you go in the bathroom you know somebody's gonna come to the desk while your in there."

"Yep," I said. "That's why I know I better look like I've been washing my hands when I come out."

"Liberry" Glossary: Good Patron (Tales of the "Good" Patrons Week: Day 1)

Good Patron
Adjective Noun Combo

1. A member of the majority population of patrons at our "liberry"—probably the top 95 percent. This patron type is described as "good" because "Good" Patrons are generally liked and appreciated by the "liberry" staff. "Good" Patrons return their books on time, or, if returning them late, immediately offer to pay their fines in full. And "Good" Patrons are often shocked and dismayed when we refuse their offered fines on days when we are not charging fines, such as Fine Free Friday or National Children's Book week, and often give us the money they had earmarked for fine-payment as a donation. "Good" Patrons are not always necessarily smiling and happy people, but at the same time are generally pleasant to be around and not actively antagonizing the staff. "Good" Patrons never give us shit. "Good" Patrons always wear deodorant. "Good" Patrons flush. "Good" Patrons double check the toilet to make sure everything has gone down after the first flush, and repeat the flushing process until it has. "Good" Patrons always remember to bring their library cards, for they know without having to be told repeatedly that library cards are a requirement when checking out books. On the rare occasion that a "Good" Patron has left their card in their other purse or other cat's ass, they do not raise hell about it but simply accept the mistake as their own and request that we hold their books until they are next able to return with their card. "Good" Patrons bring us cookies at Christmastime. "Good" Patrons have smiling, pleasant children who are well-behaved and do not trash our children's area. However, were the child of a "Good" Patron to trash our children's area, their "Good" Patron parent would clean up after them. Good Patrons never bring fifty easy reader books back at the crack of closing. In fact, by definition, "Good" Patrons never exhibit any of the bad behavior I usually bitch about here.

Tales of the Good Patrons Week

A week or so back, a post-commenter commented that my posts of late seem to indicate that I am a good deal more bitter and in need of a vacation than the happy Juice of old. I'd not thought so until that moment, but upon consideration I can see how perhaps there is some merit to this observation. After all, I save up all these stories about the behavior of our "bad" patrons, yet give hardly any play to the other 90 to 95 percent of our patron population, or, our "good" patrons.

So this week, let's devote some time to looking at those "Good" patrons who prove that it ain't all bad down "liberry" way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lord, beer me strength.

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

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

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

Nope.

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

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

Mommy, Mommy! Look what I made!

Whoo hoo! I finally made stinky! Had me a poo poo, I did! Honked out a dirt-snake. Dropped kids off at the pool. Etc.

I don't know if it was the mineral oil, the fiber or the half bag of Mrs. A's Olestra-based "light" potato chips I ate, but things are finally starting to move along.

That is all.

More information about my bowels than is absolutely necessary!

Riddle me this: How is it possible to have a shitty day and a non-shitty day at the same time?

Easy... Just get really, really constipated and head to K-Mart!

It all started Monday evening when I began to feel crampy about my mid-section. After listening to my gut with her stethoscope, my physician wife diagnosed me as being full of shit. I've received this diagnosis often enough, but not in the literal sense for quite a while now. Nothing was moving inside and my guts were bound up tighter than two S&M Christmas turkeys awaiting a jolly good beating by their dominatrix. I tried to think about what I'd eaten that might have caused my condition, but other than that block of extra sharp cheddar, I couldn't come up with a single thing. So, after a fitful, gas-pain-filled night, and an empty toilet sort of morning, I decided to head out to K-Mart for mass-quantities of toilet paper and enemas.

Let me just say, I really hate the local K-Mart. It's one of the most irritating places a person can go around here. It's a big store, but only has about 1/4 of the employees of a normal K-Mart of the same size to help stave off bankruptsy, I suppose. With so few employees, some sections of the store, particularly the office supply area, have been allowed to become a wild-west no mans' land where chaos rules and you can't find a damn thing. You can also never find anyone to help you if, say, you want to try on clothing and need the dressing rooms unlocked or if you need to put something on layaway. In those instances, there are buttons you can press that summon employees to help you by sending automated messages out over the loudspeaker calling them to you. But, K-Mart does tend to have cheap toilet paper and since my fondest wish was to use some, that's where I went to buy it.

So, there I was, rolling through the aisles of K-Mart, cart packed high with Scott 16-packs, soothing Christmas music over the speaker system interrupted twice a minute by a very loud monotone recording saying "SERVICE IS NEEDED IN LAYAWAY! SERVICE IS NEEDED IN LAYAWAY!" Soon, other shoppers began to encroach upon my personal space and get in my way. And then the loudspeakers began to play Bruce Springsteen's Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which I hate, and hate even more when it's continually interrupted by "SERVICE IS NEEDED IN LAYAWAY! SERVICE IS NEEDED IN LAYAWAY!" and I came to the decision that I'm fed up with the place and it's time to go. I took my cart full of butt-paper and enemas to check out, only to find that the only two open checkout lanes were clogged even worse than my colon.

Each checkout line contained three people and from the brimming contents of their carts, they were apparently doing all of their Christmas shopping for this year, plus shopping retroactively backward in time for seven generations. The cashiers were, naturally, not the speediest of transactionists either and this was compounded by the fact that both lines seemed to have some sort of pricing issue, which brought the whole shebang to a halt. I was irritated enough by this, but then I saw that one of the tabloids this week was picking on poor Suzanne Plechette. What did Bob Newhart's TV wife ever do to them? Jackals!

"SERVICE IS NEEDED AT THE FITTING ROOMS! SERVICE IS NEEDED AT THE FITTING ROOMS!"

Meanwhile, my stomach blazed with gas pains and cramping and at that moment I wanted nothing more than to buy my TP, escape this hellish place and, oh, maybe go home and bust a poo.

Then I sensed a presence lurking up beside me, to the right. It siddled up closer and closer, then stoped a few feet away and paused in what felt like an expectant manner. I turned expecting to see someone I knew coming over to say hi. I was right, but not in a good way, for standing there was Chester the (Potential) Molester. What's worse, Chester was smiling at me as though I were somehow his friend.

In the years I've known Chester, I've done everything short of punching him full in the face to alert him to the fact that I hate his guts. When he visits us at the library, I stare daggers at him and give him the most rage-filled spiteful face I possibly can, hoping the message will communicate that he is an unwelcome presence. (I actually told him this to his face on one occasion, but it didn't take.) Yet, every time I see him anywhere, his first reaction is to smile and wave as though I am a dear friend. This drives me nucking futs! If only I had been capable of defecating at that moment, perhaps I could have delivered unto him a violently-applied turd across the face to help him remember not to attempt friendliness at me in the future. Instead, though, I just stood there cramping and firing as much ire at him as my face could muster.

"Uh, hey," Chester said, ignoring my expression yet again. "Is the library open today?"

I continued tearing him into little shreds with my gaze for a long moment.

"I'm afraid it is," I said very slowly and with what I hoped was threat in my tone. Then I turned away from him entirely and refused to look back. Chester stood there for a moment, then wandered off, oblivious to how despised he is.

When I arrived at work, a poopless hour later, I warned my coworkers of Chester's potential to appear. Fortunately, he never showed up.

Meanwhile, I'm downing mineral oil (which tastes exactly like drinking a Crayon) and anything with fiber I can find in the hopes of busting the clog before it busts me. So far, no go.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #104

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library

MR. CRAB (FORMER ANNUAL $200 DONOR AND THIRD GRUMPIEST OLD MAN IN ALL THE WORLD)— This is MR. CRAB. Could you please renew my book (SAYS NAME OF BOOK)?

ME— Sure. Can I have your library card number?

(Pause)

MR. CRAB— (Only mildly annoyed) Ohhhh. Let me get my wallet and I'll give it to you

(Long pause)

MR. CRAB— Just a minute. I got too many pockets.

(Long pause)

MR. CRAB— Well, here it is... The last few numbers are... (GIVES ME THE LAST FEW NUMBERS OF HIS LIBRARY CARD NUMBER) Is that right?

ME— I'm not sure. I'd need the whole number.

(Pause)

MR. CRAB— So you want me to give you this millionaire of a number here?

ME— Yes, sir.

(Long pause)

MR. CRAB— (In a tone practically bristling with regret that he's already alerted us to the fact that he will be witholding his $200 annual donation this year due to some infraction on our part, preventing him from making that threat again at this juncture.) Okaaaaayyy...

(Mr. Crab reads me the entire number, but it sounds like it has too many digits. Nothing comes up. I try variations on it without as many zeroes as he gave me, but nothing is coming up.)

ME— Could you repeat that number? It's not coming up.

(I start him off with the first few numbers. He fills in the rest and I see that he'd inserted a nonexistent 3 in what he read to me originally. I renew his book.)

ME— There. I've got it renewed for you through the 17th.

MR. CRAB— (Not listening whatsoever) Well, that's the number I have here. Maybe I don't have the right card. I had two of them. And there's some other number written here, but I don't know what that is.

ME— No, I've already renewed it for you.

MR. CRAB— Maybe there's another card here, somewhere...

ME— (Louder) No, I've already renewed it for you.

MR. CRAB— You what?

ME— That's your card. I've got you right here on the screen and I've already renewed your book for you.

MR. CRAB— Oh, you did?

ME— Yes. Through the 17th.

MR. CRAB— (SAYS NAME OF BOOK IN SUSPICIOUS TONE, AS IF I MIGHT HAVE RENEWED AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT BOOK)

ME— Yes.

MR. CRAB— Oh. (Pause) Very good.

(One day I shall have to tell the story of the physical altercation Mr. Crab and I nearly got into at a wine and cheese reception we both attended.)

"Liberry" Glossary: Gorebits

Gorebits
-noun (plural)

1. Small, often triangular wedges of torn paper towel found dotting the floor of our public restrooms at any given point during the day, but especially at closing time. These are fragments of larger paper towels that have been torn asunder due to the inability of our patrons to simply pull the entire towel from the towel dispenser, whole. We're not certain why patrons seem to be having such difficulty with such a simple a task, as we the staff have personally tested each towel dispenser and have found them to be in functioning order and containing towels that are quite easy to remove with no tearing necessary. However, the sheer amount of Gorebits left behind on the floor indicates that our patron population is indeed in need of assistance and/or a tutorial session when it comes to their use. It should be noted that at no time has it ever occurred to our patrons to deposit their torn Gorebits in the waste-receptical conveniently located DIRECTLY BENEATH the paper towel dispenser. No, the Gorebits are instead released to float on the fecal-particle-laden air-currents until they find a new home on the floor where they remain until the staff has to clean them up at the end of the day. Gorebits are named in honor of former Vice President Al Gore, who would no doubt be appalled to know that an entire paper towel's worth of paper is being wasted each day in the form of Gorebits.


2. A wildly unpopular corn-based breakfast cereal released by General Mills in 2000. It was distinctive in that the cereal was manufactured in the shape of uncounted hanging chads and tasted like bitter defeat. It went out of production in 2002 after it was discovered the only person still eating it was its namesake.

We've Got Letters!

The following letter was originally sent to me as a comment response, but I think it deserves a closer look in a larger forum. So here we go...

Dear Liberry Ninja,

I live in an area with a county-wide liberry system that allows me to search the online catalog from home, reserve books that are checked out or living at other branches, and then pick them up later at my neighborhood branch. It even emails me when the book is ready to be collected from my branch's reserve shelf.

I visited the circulation desk the other day because the book I'd been notified about wasn't on the reserve shelf. When I gave the nice lady my name she said, "Oh, yes. I know that name." And she said this very inscrutably, so I'm trying to figure out if there was extra meaning there. I'm guessing I reserve a noteworthy number of books. But am I reserving too many books?

Am I being a pain in the ass?

--Don't Want the Liberrians to Hate Me

Dear Don't,

Are you being a pain in the ass? Eh, possibly, but probably not.

We too have a couple of patrons who do pretty big business when it comes to reserving lots and lots of books from home. Granted, we don't have a fancy system like the "liberry" in your area that can send emails and alerts. We barely have one that lets people reserve things on their computers at home and, unfortunately, we don't always remember to run the report to see what books have been paged so we can fetch them from the stacks. But when we do remember, and there are suddenly eight books on hold for a given patron, I can't say that we resent it much.

Frankly, I'd rather have patrons reserving those eight books from home than tying up the circ desk or (God help them) phoning us to reserve them. They always start rattling off titles to me at breakneck speed, as though our slow-ass computer is capable of allowing me to reserve them at that sort of pace, let alone my poor typing fingers. I have to stop them, write all the titles down on a piece of paper and do them one at a time later on. Otherwise there's lots of starting and stopping and repeating and, yes, resentment on my part. And if they're phoning from home, they always start with the rattling-off-of-titles and I have to interrupt them to ask for their library card number and they NEHeHeHEEVER have it handy, so they gotta go dig it out of the cat's ass, or wherever they keep it, to come back and start the whole thing over. Now that's maddening! So, to me, reserving things from home, quietly and without involving me so much is a very good and welcome thing indeed.

Our only real trouble with our major offen... uh, user of the home reserve system is that she reserves SO many books at once and then doesn't usually come pick them up in a timely fashion, needlessly clogging up the limited amount of space in our hold bin. The books stay there for five days, then get reshelved until they're checked out and returned by other patrons, starting the hold process over again, or until the patron who requested them finally comes in for them, days or weeks later. (Fortunately she never complains to us when all eight to ten books are not immediately available after she's let their hold time lapse and she's okay with finding them on her own.)

In our system, interlibrary loans have to be done through the library requesting them, rather than by patrons at home, so that's not much concern. Our major problem with ILL patrons is that some of them request the limit in books and then hound us for them, calling every couple of days to see if they've arrived yet, despite our assurances that it may take up to 10 days to receive them and oru promises to call them the moment the books come in. Then, once the books have arrived and we call them as promised, they let them sit in the ILL bin until nearly the due date a month later, then complain to us that they only get three days to read them all. Don't ever be that guy.

Otherwise, I think you're a good patron, I'd be happy to have you at our branch, and I doubt that your local liberrians think you're an ass. They're even probably happy for the circulation numbers you help generate. Way to go.

Paranoid Rick James Buys a New Card

Not seen much of Paranoid Rick James in a while. Yet, he appeared yesterday and asked if we had wireless capabilities. Ms. D told him that we did and he returned to his car to fetch a laptop, then returned to sign up. I didn't see where Rick went after that, but he wasn't seated at any of the tables in sight of the circ desk. And I didn't find him at any of our less observable tables, when I just happened to walk near them during the course of my "liberry" duties. Curious.

Even more curious, I later spied Rick's girlfriend, Gladys Knight, in the building, but was too busy riding herd over the desktop computer users to see where she went either. By the end of the workday, there was still no sign of Rick or Gladys and I began to wonder if they'd secreted themselves away in some out-of-sight nook of the building where they clearly weren't meant to be.

I asked Ms. D if she'd seen where he'd gone, but she hadn't. I then warned her that when Rick was about, there was always a high expectation of some shit being distributed, usually in our direction. So we searched the building down to the storage rooms and found no sign of Rick or Gladys.

Today Rick was back. He walked in, laptop at the ready and requested some time. I printed him out a login slip and told him how to use it (even though I knew he already had been told before).

"Yeah. It worked fine yesterday," he said. This time I saw him head for one of the back corner tables.

Later, while shelving in the area, only within sight of Rick through the gaps above the books in our back to back shelves, I noticed Rick look up suddenly at my approach.

"You, uh... You work here, right?" he asked. What was he, stupid? He'd just seen me behind the circ desk not 20 minutes before. I'd been the one who gave him his damn time printout.

"Yeah," I said.

"I... uh. I need a new library card," Rick said. "Is there a way I could get one?"

Inwardly I seethed. Paranoid Rick James bringing up the subject of library cards was a sure omen of an approaching shit storm. He is, after all, the same guy who used to refuse to check anything out on his own patron record AT ALL for years, then railed at us for being in league with homeland security and the devil for not only switching to a new library software system that required patrons to get new cards and have them present when checking items out, but also requiring a driver's license number and, *GASP*, a physical address before we would issue one to him. He's the same guy who then threw a big honking, screaming, shit fit about it, refused to apply for one, but then slunk back in a couple days later to apply for one anyway using an old license with an incorrect physical address, allowing him to skirt that part of the policy. This, of course, eventually brought down the anger of the "liberry" gods on his head and he was forced to pony up a real address. He's had several similar infractions since then, but has refrained from any more displays of ire.

"Sure," I said. "We do replacement cards, but we charge $1 for them."

Rick nodded amiably enough and I went about my business. I was determined, however, that if he was going to get a new card he was damn well going to show us a valid driver's license before we'd even look him up by name and it had damn well better match the information we have on file for him 100 percent.

About 20 minutes later, as I was moving to shelve some easy readers, I caught sight of Rick moving toward the circ desk. I'd planned to be there to help him myself, but suddenly switching gears to race back to do so when Mrs. B was already in place at the desk seemed like a hand-tipping move, so I continued on my way. As soon as I could, though, I crept back to the desk and tried to look busy rummaging in a drawer in order to witness the fecal hurricane that was sure to come.

Rick had, by then, already explained to Mrs. B what he needed. Before she could even ask for his license, though, he produced it for her. She looked at it, compared the information to that on the screen, replaced his barcode with a new one, collected his buck and sent him on his way. Mrs. C was standing nearby, I'm sure to be on hand for the storm as well.

"There's no way that license was valid," I said.

"Mm," Mrs. C said, noncommitally.

No, that exchange went way, way too easily. Granted, it's exactly the same process that would have happened for anyone with valid information, and there's always the off chance that his was. However, I somehow don't see Rick giving us anything as freely as he did unless he was scamming us. We've learned from experience that if transactions with Rick aren't like pulling teeth, he's up to something. Of course, maybe I'm the one who's being paranoid.

We grilled Mrs. B about the transaction, but she said everything matched up perfectly and there was nothing to call him on. I still doubt that Rick is actually living where his license and his account say he is, but we'll have no proof of it until he checks something out, keeps it too long and our overdue notice to him bounces back for a bad address.

Then again, I guess I could just Google his phone number.

Heh heh heh.

Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #103

ME— Can I help you?

WHISPERING FEMALE PATRON— (Nearly inaudible) I had some prints.

ME— I'm sorry?

WFP— (Even less audible) I had some prints.

ME— Prints?

WFP— (Nods)

(I go and fetch the prints.)

WFP— (Nearly inaudible) Do you have a stapler?

ME— (I cup my hand to my ear to indicate that despite the fact she is a mere two feet away from me, I cannot hear her) I'm sorry?

WFP— (Even less audible) Do you have a stapler?

(Pause)

ME— A stapler?

WFP— (Nods)

(I give her a stapler and she begins counting her prints and stapling them together. When she is done, she looks up at me.)

ME— How many were there?

WFP— (Completely inaudible)

ME— (Cup hand to ear, hoping yet again to indicate that I CANNOT HEAR HER!!!!!) I'm sorry?

WFP— Nineteen. (Pause) I'm sorry. I can't speak very loud right now.

"Liberry" Glossary: Ass-Shields

Ass-Shields
-noun (plural)

1. Strips of toilet paper used to cover the seats of our public toilets, theoretically preventing the transfer of deadly, lingering ass-bacteria onto the asses of the patrons applying them. Ass-Shields ideally remain unseen by anyone but the Ass-Shield/Toilet Seat Applicant, because they are—again, ideally—flushed following use. There are, however, some patrons who refuse to touch the Ass-Shields after use, perhaps for fear of the deadly, lingering ass-bacteria that have soaked into the tissue fibers during the compressed direct contact with the toilet seat. The Ass-Shields of such patrons are then abandoned on the seat where they either fall partially into the toilet on the winds of air-conditioning and flatulence, or, more often than not, fall onto the floor where a staff member later has to deal with them, risking contamination by deadly, lingering ass-bacteria themselves. Patrons who abandon their Ass-Shields in this fashion are known as Ass-Holes.

More fun with signs

@ The Library has some spectacular signs, also long overdue.

A sign we desperately need.

To be placed directly above the urinal at eye-level.

NOTICE

Though we cannot fathom why this sign should be necessary, for the love of all that is good and holy in this world, and for the sake of the noses and eyes of our staff, please, PLEASE, PLEASE flush the damned urinal after you've used it. We the staff find it unacceptable that the urinal is full of bright yellow piss and a few pube floaters every time we come in for a scheduled inspection. It is a situation that must change and that change must start with you the patron.

Now, we understand that you may not wish to contaminate your hands with the penis-germs left by other urinal users who—in theory, at least—used their wang-hand to touch the flush-handle. This is indeed an unfortunate probability. To avoid contamination of your hands while flushing, we invite you to instead use an elbow, shoulder, foot, chin or, indeed, your own wang, to flush the urinal in lieu of digital manipulation. Alternately, one of the primary reasons God created toilet-paper was to act as a barrier between hands and mooky stinks. You will find a plentiful supply of said paper in the toilet stall directly next to you and are invited to use it for this purpose. (Please do us the courtesy of depositing your penis-germ-infected flush-barrier paper in either our waste-paper receptacle or in the toilet; not in the urinal. Depositing your paper in the urinal will only draw our ire and our wrath; for as unfortunate as it would be to contaminate your hands with penis germs, it would be even more unfortunate to have a stout metal book-end crammed up your ass by an irate gang of staff-members.)

When you've finished flushing, we invite you to wash your hands. Please note that it is not necessary to fling water everywhere during the process of washing your hands. It is perfectly possible and preferable that you simply soap them up, rub them soapily, rinse them and dry them without excess water flingage. Tutorials on how to accomplish this are available by appointment at the circulation desk.

In closing, flush the damned urinal, wash your damned hands, don't fling water everywhere doing it, keep the place clean and shut up.

ohhhhhhhhhhhh...

...too much... food... to... blog.

can... barely... breathe.

only... meant... to get... a little more... food... on second... helping.

Failed...

... ate entire... brimming... second... plate.

cannot... stuff down... even one... more piece of... pumpkin pie.

must... lie... on... floor... and... digest...

...for three hours...

... before going back...

...for more.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #102

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

MRS. CRAB (WIFE OF MR. CRAB, FORMER $200 ANNUAL DONOR AND THIRD GRUMPIEST OLD MAN IN ALL THE WORLD)— Yes, I'd like to see about renewing a book, please.

ME— Very well. Can I have your library card number?

MRS. CRAB— Oh. (Pause) Oh... (To husband elsewhere in the house) Do you have your library card number?

(Pause)

(Indecipherable grumbling)

(Pause)

MRS. CRAB— He's getting it, now. It's for the book (NAME OF BOOK) by (NAME OF AUTHOR) spelled (SPELLS NAME OF AUTHOR), if that helps.

(It does not. I wait in silence as I can do nothing with that information)

MRS. CRAB— Okay, I have it here. (Pause) Er... which number is it? There's this big long number and there's this other one he's written in.

ME— (Not sure what other number she could be referring to, as the only other number on the back of our library cards is our phone number.) Uh, I'm not sure. The library card number is the long one there below the bar code.

MRS. CRAB— Oh, okay.

(She reads me the number and I pull up Mr. Crab's record. Having no reason to have recognized Mrs. Crab's voice, I am delighted to see that the record belongs to Mr. Crab. I am warmed by this knowledge, as I know that Mr. Crab is now very annoyed at having to fish out and supply his number when he had hoped that having his wife phone in his renewal would relieve him of any hassles. I renew Mr. Crab's book, being careful not to accidentally hit RENEW WITH NO FINE, but instead RENEW WITH FINE, so he'll have a .15 cent charge to bitch about when he turns his book in. I hope I'm there to see it.)

"Liberry" Glossary: Basket Cases

Basket Cases
-noun (plural)

1. Mentally unstable or otherwise crazy patrons.


2. Patron parents, often with multiple children, who check out the full available limit in books on each of their children's cards, their own card and often on the linked cards of non-present family members. They do this in the mistaken belief that this will somehow keep their brood occupied reading for the longest possible amount of time, freeing they the parent from having to entertain or otherwise deal with them. The name for this patron type stems from their habit of hauling away the dozens of selections their children have made in a very large wicker basket or, alternately, a colorfully-painted washtub. This is actually all right with us, for we do like those circulation numbers. The only trouble is, that Basket Cases very often accomplish these mass-checkouts, which take upwards of five minutes for our staff to accomplish, on story hour day when the desk is overrun with OTHER basket case families doing exactly the same thing, creating a gigantic Basket Case clog. And because massive amounts of books are difficult to keep up with in the best of circumstances, Basket Cases are perpetually in hock to the "liberry" for overdue books. Often they insist that they returned said books and raise a stink about it and check our shelves to no avail, only to find them hidden at home, months later. Because of their perpetual indebtedness, Basket Cases, often insist on returning their books on Fridays, a day on which our branch traditionally does not charge fines. This would be perfectly acceptable to us, except that Basket Cases almost always insist on returning their hoards of books at approximately five minutes before closing time. And because it's never simply ONE Basket Case family that does this, the Friday closing staff member present (i.e. me) always has to spend an unnecessary amount of time shelving all those damn books after closing and is always late for his dinner.

(See also: Bag People)

Year Four in the Can

Today is the fourth anniversary of the beginning of this blog.

Wow. Four years of "liberry" goodness. Who'da thunk it? I figured I would have gotten bored with it long before now, but so far I've not.

Lemme just say, I couldn't have done it without my crazy patrons, so to them I say "Thanks." Their crazy antics and annoying ideosyncracies have given me ample material to cover and recover

Also, I probably wouldn't have kept this blog going without you the audience being there. You're not an enormous crowd by the usual "innanet" standards (meaning, I don't have the kind of numbers most folks would be interested in advertising to) but from the stats I've seen you're a very faithful and regular bunch--and ever-increasing! The numbers have steadily climbed as the years have gone by, which warms me greatly. Even the wife has come around to viewing it as not a complete waste of time, particularly since so many of her coworkers are now fans of it because she can't keep her mouth shut about it no matter how many times I keep telling her this is supposed to be strictly on the Q.T! (But, I'm glad to have them too!)

Suffice it to write, I'm quite happy everyone is here and I hope to keep you on a bit further.

Which brings me to my next point...

Even after four years of this, I'm not yet ready to give up. I've learned a great deal about the blogging game along the way and feel like I've got this machine firmly within my control. There are still implications and secrets yet to be revealed and I'm certain I can keep chunking up quality posts for a while yet... oh, let's say at least the next seven months, or so.

At least.

Could be longer.

We'll all have to wait and see.

A Visit from the Fambly

There's this good friend friend of mine whom I've known since 8th grade. Let's call him "Matthew." Now, I don't know for sure what "Matthew" eats today, but after moving out on his own during college he traditionally avoided raw vegetables like they were made of poison.

I've had several occasions to share a meal with "Matthew" since then, usually in such fine dining establishments as, say, a Ryan's buffet. When at such buffets, my first course of the evening is always to visit the never-ending salad bar for a good sized plate of greenery to help off-set all the brown food I'm about to eat. For "Matthew," however, salad doesn't even factor into his world. It's not that salad was considered and decided against in favor of tastier fried grub; no. Instead, salad as a concept was never on "Matthew's" radar to begin with. And upon sitting down with our first courses before us, "Matthew" has always given my choice of greenery a most bewildered look. It's an expression that clearly states: "Dude, we're adults now and our parents aren't here. We don't have to eat that shit anymore." Nevermind the fact that I always finished my salad and then put away twice as much fried crap as "Matthew" (and nevermind the fact that with every trip to the bar we both were secretly stuffing packets of crackers into our pockets so we could have a big, juvenile cracker-crumb-spitting fight in the parking lot afterward, returning ever-so-briefly to those blessed post-cafeteria, 8th grade, big cracker-crumb-spitting fights of yore), he was still offended that I would even eat lettuce at all.

Some folks are like that with libraries. (Actually, "Matthew" is like that with libraries, but that's cause he's dyslexic and hates reading, hence why I feel completely safe talking about him here.)

For some folks, the very concept of a library has never once popped up on their radar and if they enter one at all it's due to one of three reasons: A) because they have mistaken it for the water department (which probably only happens around here, since the water department is indeed next door), B) there's something we have that they need, and for free; or C) because THEY sent these folks to our door.

These library neophytes are easy to spot too. There's just a certain air about them of "liberry" inexperience that permeates their being—their very body language—and causes them to stand out in a bad way, kind of like Tag body spray.

A whole fambly of such anomalies visited the "liberry" a couple weeks back, determined to use them a compooter. Actually, only two of the anomalies, the grandmother and the older brother, wanted to use them a compooter, which they had been told (perhaps even by THEY) they could use to apply online for a job with a local chain grocery store. The other two fambly members, a 10 year old younger brother and his adult mentally-handicapped cousin, were left to wander the building.

I observed them for a while, much as a primatologist might observe the behavior of a couple of orangutans in laboratory conditions. They seemed wildly out of place, yet still fascinated by the sheer volume of books we had on display. After exploring for a while, the little brother came up to the circ desk.

"Um... do you have books on dinosaurs?" he asked.

"Oh, do we have books on dinosaurs," I said, grinning. "Let me show you where they are." I lead him to the expansive 567s, which he seemed quite impressed by. He immediately set about pulling books out, giving them a gander and then woefully misshelving them. I left him to it. After about five minutes, during which I had to help grandma and older brother with their job application website, which was admittedly a little wonky itself, little brother came back to the desk.

"Um... How much do these books cost?" he asked.

I told him they were free to borrow, but he would need a library card.

"How much does a library card cost?" he asked.

It too, I noted, was free.

The kid's face lit up and he quickly dashed to his grandmother, card application in hand to see if she would let him have one. She filled it out and sent him back and, after confirming with our computer that he didn't already have one, I soon had a shiny new card to pass to him.

Off he went to find more books, but was soon back at the desk.

"Do you have books about pirates?"

Actually, pirate books were a bit thin on the ground, outside of fiction, so I showed him some age-appropriate storybooks featuring pirates. He'd barely touched them when he decided he'd rather have books on dragons. They too were kind of scarce outside of fiction, and most of the fictional books were aimed at either far smaller children or far older adults. I was trying to find a happy medium when the mentally-handicapped cousin interrupted to ask for books on outer space and telescopes. Easier to find, I took him to them, then had to turn back to the dragons cause the kid was getting insistent. I found him the Deltora Quest series, which I thought might not have as many pictures as he would like, but he didn't seem to care and took most what we had of the series. He checked them out, along with a dinosaur book or two, but soon returned to trade out books for other books he wanted more. Before I knew it, the kid and the cousin were running me ragged throughout the building in search of books on wildly different subjects. Their glee at each discovery was so strong, though, that I could hardly be offended by it.

"Do you have zombie books?" the kid eventually asked. He then gestured back toward the computers. "They're for my brother."

The brother looked to be at least 16, so I fetched World War Z and told the kid it was probably the best (and possibly the only, unless you count I Am Legend) zombie book we had on hand. Brother and grandmother eventually finished up their work application and then, at the kid's insistence, the older brother came to get a card to check out his zombie goodness. No sooner had I made the card, though, then the two siblings began a vicious argument as to which of them would get to actually check the book out. The little brother, perhaps out of some sense of gift-giving or courtesy, wanted to check it out on his card while the older brother rightfully wanted it on his own. I broke it up by saying that it was the older brother's book so it was going on the older brother's card, and they both seemed fine with that.

I was a little dubious as to whether we'd get any of our books back, as "liberry" neophytes are so often oblivious to such requirements. However, the cousin has since returned his books and as of today I spied World War Z back on the shelf.

Maybe I've turned them to the other team.

And the cycle starts anew

Among the books that arrived with this week's B&T shipment was a brand new copy of Dave Pelzer's A Child Called It.

Now, I've not read the book and I've no intention of reading the book. However, looking upon our shiny new copy of it, I realized that this is probably the eighth or ninth copy of that particular book that we've purchased in the past six years.

"Wonder how long this one will last?" I asked Mrs. B, holding up the book for her to see. She took one look and shook her head, knowing well what I meant. Our rookie "liberry" ass., Ms. D, on the other hand, looked on confused.

I explained to Ms. D that of all the books in our library, A Child Called It truly deserves an award for being one of the most-circulated and certainly one of the most-stolen library books of the past twenty years. We cannot keep a copy of it on the shelf for more than a few months at at time before it's gone again.

I used to wonder why a nonfiction book about an abused child would be in such demand and so often criminally overdue. Is it such a good book that people become emotionally attached to it and cannot let it go? Eh, I've seen that happen before but it's not so likely. There are some possible explanations.

The first one that comes to mind is that people are just assholes.

A second, more charitable explanation stems from the fact that I'm pretty sure there's a teacher at the local community college who regularly assigns it as reading for class. My theory on this is as follows: students check it out, read it, maybe take too long reading it, try to renew it, find that they can't renew it because eight of their fellow classmates now have it on hold, discover that it's now overdue, decide they don't want to pay the fine and prefer to wait for some sort of amnesty day (nevermind the fact that we have one weekly), fail to return it and continue holding onto it until they forget they ever had it. Because they're students, their mailing addresses are apt to change, particularly if they transfer to a four year college, leaving their parents to receive all the overdue notices we send out. The parents don't want to deal with it and decide to teach their kid a real-world life lesson by letting them face the consequences, but since we rarely hunt people down with pointed sticks over library books (unlike Mr. Rob, the community college librarian, who has been known to go to people's houses to retrieve books) this amounts to little. And so we order a new copy and the cycle starts anew.

A third, more charitable explanation, is that there are certain people in this world who just don't fathom how libraries are supposed to work. I reason this from the number of people who request A Child Called It who then have to be issued library cards before they can check it out. (If they were all community college students, they would already have library cards, as cards are manditorily issued as part of student enrollment.) These library neophytes, as I think any library professional can atest, are rarely seen in libraries unless there's an outside reason that brings them in. Once there, they might try to play along with our quaint "rules" and "policies" but their hearts really aren't in it.

I think all three explanations are probably true, but the third theory does bring to mind a recent visit by a family of "liberry" neophytes that amused me greatly...

"Liberry" Glossary: Patron Squeezings

Patron Squeezings
-noun (plural)

1. The prints and smears left atop our computer desks following the departure of the majority of our "innanet" crowd patrons. A greasier bunch of human beings would be difficult to imagine. We should have bought stock in surface cleaning/disinfectant spray. Either that or we should start enacting prison-style washdowns in the foyer.

A Mother-In-Law's Love

Recently, the wife asked me to read an email her mother had sent. The email content itself is of no bearing to this story, except for a post script which read something to the effect that she, my wife, was to take my photograph when I opened a package that was soon to arrive for me.

"I have a package coming?" I asked.

"You weren't supposed to read that part," the wife said.

I started to argue the merits of asking me to read an email message without warning me in advance of the bits of it I wasn't supposed to read, but decided that as I still didn't know the contents of the package, no harm had been done.

And so it came to pass that in two days time a large box arrived addressed to us. Unfortunately, the wife was on call at the hospital that night, so I decided against opening it for fear of retribution for lost snapshot opportunities. When she returned the following day, however, I alerted her to its arrival and of my good behavior in not peeking at its contents. The wife told me that I was going to freak out with happiness when I saw what it was. And I knew she spoke the truth, for surprises from Ma designed to freak me out in a happy way always do. After all, my mother-in-law is the very lady who knitted me an eighteen foot long Tom Baker Doctor Who scarf a few Christmases ago, an act which caused me to leap about the room, giggling and clapping my Chex-mix stained hands together in glee, possessed firmly by my inner fourth-grader. Shortly thereafter, I was heard to to utter the phrase, "Hell yes, I'm gonna sleep with it!" when asked if I was planning to do so. And sleep with it I did.

The wife was practically giggling herself when she turned on the camera and prepared to record the moment of freakage she was sure was about to occur. Carefully I cut the tape holding the box flaps down, taking my time with it to prolong the moment. (I get so few positive freak-out moments in life, so it's best to savor them when they do come my way.) I then sliced the tape down the center of the box, slowly opened the cardboard flaps and peered into its depths.

My first glimpse of the contents was of an emergency roadside tool kit, the very kind I've been meaning to purchase for several years now. It was not, however, a freak-out worthy present. A bit to the left, I next spied a pair of lounge pants printed with the characters of South Park. Again, a fine present, but I was not freaking out.

Then I saw it.

Partially submerged in the sea of pink packing peanuts within was the object at right, a Doctor Who TARDIS cookie jar.

I completely and happilly freaked the hell out!

I cannot show you the images the wife took of my freak-out, for they are even more embarassing than my admission of sleeping in my scarf. Suffice it to say, I have yet to pass through my kitchen without reaching over and pressing the blue light atop the TARDIS's lid, which is the hidden switch that causes the beacon light to come to life while the sound effects of the craft dematerializing play for several seconds. It's truly one of the most satisfying kitchen-items I own.

At the moment, my TARDIS cookie jar is sadly filled with Kashi snack bars instead of unhealthy cookies, but I plan to rectify that as soon as the wife can be persuaded to bake up a batch of oatmeal rasin.

And, no, I haven't slept with it yet, but the week is young.

(At right, a TARDIS triad and a tin dog.)

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #101

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

PATRON— Do you have Barbara Delinsky's new book in… Faucets?

ME— (Looks up Facets) No, I'm sorry, it's not in.

Stankrony

A hiker/drifter came through, smelling strongly, though not overpoweringly, of sweat and unwashed funk. He was very polite, asked to use a computer and I logged him on.

After 20 minutes, or so, I discovered that while the hiker's odor wasn't terribly offensive, it did tend to lurk in unexpected places and was not limited to his proximity. Depending on the drafts of our air-conditioning system, I might stumble into a patch of it in the juvenile shelves, or even across the building in nonfiction, places where I knew he had not been.

After the hiker had stayed at his computer for nearly an hour, the Sweatiest Woman in all the Land arrived and signed up for a system herself. I had loads of other terminals I could have put her at, but I thought both ironic and karmicly satisfying to stick her directly next to the hiker.

Neither seemed to notice.

Policy Adjustments of the Needed Kind

At our staff meeting last week, one of the topics we covered was the use of cell phones in the "liberry." Until recently, cells were mostly just an occasional annoyance. However, our additional computer terminals brought additional opportunities for more cell phone usage and abusage. I don't think we've actually had any actual complaints from patrons about cell phones, but there have been several recent incidents of loud cell talking and loud ringtone blaring at the computers, so Mrs. A decided it was high time to put our collective foot down. Cell phones are now to be restricted to the enclosed foyer, the out of doors or, perhaps, the restrooms.

The other major matter we discussed was that of children using the internet without parental supervision or parental permission slips on file. At our branch, kids between the age of 13 and 18 cannot use the internet alone without a parental permission slip on file. If they have no slip or are younger than 13, they have to have a parent sitting with them as they use the internet. These policies have been on the books for a while, but a number of brats have been slipping through because certain staff members have an inability to estimate age visually. (And though I am hardly the only one, I have to include myself among the Certain Staff Member ranks, as I've been guilty of misjudging age myself. For instance, I recently let a 17 year old guy have a computer, having assumed he was in his mid 20s because he was at least 6'5", built like a linebacker and had a neck tattoo. On the flip side of the coin, I once tried to card a 24-year-old woman because she was about 4'5" tall and looked exactly like a 12-year-old, male cast member from Newsies.)

Mrs. A informed us that we were to start cracking down again. No longer would we allow kids on sans slip or sans parent.

Last night, we had both policies tested when a high school aged girl came in and signed up for a computer.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Sixteen."

"Do you have a permission slip on file?"

"No, but my mom's on the way in," she said.

We waited for Mom to turn up, but four minutes crawled by with no sign of her. The girl huffed and rolled her eyes and stared through the front door in the direction of the parking lot. Finally, fed up, she went outside to fetch her mom. A minute later she returned, dragging in her mother, who was talking on a cell phone. The mother, still on the phone, gave me the international sign language for "I'm just going to sign her in and then I'll take my call outside while she uses the computer."

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but without a permission slip on file, you'll need to sit with her while she uses the computer."

The mother looked agitated, then said, "Hold on," into the phone, before turning back to me. "I'm just going to be right outside. We do this every day," she said.

Uh, no, they don't do this every day. I'm there every day and I think I would know.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry, but we just had a staff meeting about this and we have to follow the policy. Kids either have to have permission slips on file or they have to have a parent with them when they use the internet."

The mom rolled her eyes, in much the same way her daughter had before. This annoyed me greatly, so I added, "Also, I have to tell you that we can't have the cell phone in here, either. You're welcome to use it in the foyer or outside, but you can't use it in here."

The mom looked at her daughter then looked back outside where she had been talking before, then back at daughter.

"Just! Hang! Up!" the daughter said.

"I can't," Mom said. "I have to take this call."

The daughter then emitted an impressively executed teenage-girl-grunt as mom continued to look indecisive.

Oh, the dilemma! Do you continue with your no doubt lengthy phone call, pissing off your already moody teenage daughter even further, insuring a spite-filled evening, or do you end your call to go be shackled to this surly creature as she does her MySpacing or "school research" or whatever she's supposed to be doing?

Since the mom was clearly not doing the math herself, I used my "liberry" ninja skills to deftly snatch a permission slip form from the front pocket of our permission slip binder, held it up and said, "You know, if you sign one of these we're all good."

Mom's eyes lit up at the ingeniousness of my offered solution. She held out her hand for the form even as the daughter dashed away to her computer.

Actual Conversations I SWEAR TO GOD Happened in Actual Libraries #100

SETTING: My "liberry" as our semi-illiterate patron Mr. Little Stupid approaches the circ desk, paper and pencil in hand.

MR. LITTLE STUPID— How do you spell Mickey Mouse?

ME— (Barely able to contain my mirth due to the singing voice of Annette Funicello ringing in my head) Um... that's M-I-C... K-E-Y... okay, and then below that, M-O-U-S-E.

MR. LITTLE STUPID— Thanks.

ME— No problem.

Self-Busting Avoidance Theatre

We have three Memorex 2 gig jump drives in our household. (We can only ever find two of them, however, while the third is usually taking a ride in the washing machine's spin-cycle.) They're pretty much identical, except for one the wife has carved the letter "A" into. I managed to grab that one rather than my own before heading to work. Turned out the one I'd grabbed was the one we stored our Alaska pictures on for use with our digital picture frame. So I stuck them into an Alaska Pix directory on my computer at work and set the screensaver to scroll through them.

"What is THAT?" Newbie Ms. D asked upon spying the above picture.

"Oh, that's a Sa1chaket Indian grave," I said.

Ms. D said she'd never heard of the Sa1chaket Indians before, so I told her that they're pretty much gone these days but for one lady who still lives in the Sa1cha region of Alaska. Ms. D continued to express curiosity and wondered if there was anything online about them. I knew there was, because one of my readers here had steered me in the right direction when I'd had trouble finding info online back in May. Turns out I'd spelled Sa1chaket as "Sa1chacket" and that's why I couldn't find them.

With Ms. D at my heels, I decided to show off this knowledge and headed for the circ computer to Google it up. I brought up Google and typed "Sa1chacket" into the search blank. Just before I was about to hit enter, though, I noticed that my brain was screaming. It took a moment to understand it, but once it had calmed down enough to form sentences, it told me that if I did hit enter, one of the sites that was going to pop up in the list would be this one.

I hovered there for a moment, certain that I was about to bring a busting down on my own head. Instead of hitting enter, I backspaced over what I'd typed and instead searched for "Native Alaskan Tribes." That didn't help toward finding any Sa1chaket information, but it stalled long enough for Mrs. C to pop over and ask to borrow Ms. D for a project.

Once Ms. D was gone, I went ahead and did my search for "Sa1chacket." Sure enough, my entry was right there at number 2 in the list. Right above the search term, though, was the phrase "Did you mean Sa1chaket?" with a link to the correct spelling. Since I'd never managed to spell it right here, none of my pages stuff were in that search. I bookmarked that site and made sure to show Ms. D later, hoping this would satisfy her curiosity, preventing her from going off on her own searches and misspellings.

So far so good.

Actual Fantasy Telephone Conversations Not Actually Heard in My House #99

*RING*

ME— Hello?

(Silence)

ME— Hello?

(*SILENCE*)
(*CLICK*)

MICHAEL— Hello?

(*SILENCE*)

ME— Helloooo?

MICHAEL— Hello. Mr. Aaron?

ME— Yes?

MICHAEL— Hi, my name is Michael and I work for the State Troopers' Association. As you may know, our fall fund drive is approaching and it’s very important that we…

ME— (Rudely interrupting) Here’s where I have to stop you, Michael. See, I’ve already had this conversation with about four of you guys in the past four months and I can already tell you exactly how this is going to go down.

MICHAEL— Sir, I…

ME— No, no. Let me finish, Michael. Cause I’m pretty good at this. See, Michael, had I allowed this call to continue, uninterrupted, what would have happened is as follows: You would have continued speaking, going into a long-winded spiel about how the Troopers' Association needs money and is in the process of gearing up for their annual fund drive and were hoping to find people willing to donate funds to that drive. However, Michael, you would have delivered this appeal in such a rapid-fire burst of speech that I would not have been able to get a word in edgewise without rudely interrupting you. In order not to seem rude, I would then have allowed you blow on for nearly a minute until you came to the end of the massive paragraph printed on the card in front of you. At that point, you would have issued an inquiry such as, “Can we count on you for $50?” or “How much can we count on you for?” You might even use a bold statement such as “I can put you down for $50.” Whichever you used, the goal of your endgame, as we both know, would be to get me to part with as much money as possible, with continued negotiations downward should I not wish to give the full $50. At this point, Michael, you would have at last paused to allow me to speak, an opportunity I would then take in order to make the point I would have preferred to have made far earlier; which is this: beyond the repeated annoying phone calls, I have nothing against the Troopers' Association, nor many of the other organizations who call seeking my money; I do, however, have a hard and fast rule in my household, which is that I accept absolutely no telephone solicitation of any kind. The only exception to this rule is if that solicitation is coming directly from representatives of my telephone company, my long-distance service or a competing long-distance service, and these are only entertained if those companies are actively looking to save me money over my present services. Even then, it’s really really dicey and, to date, not one of them has succeeded.

MICHAEL— Sir, I can assure you that I'm not soli…

ME— At that point in our hypothetical conversation, Michael, you would have rudely interrupted me to assure me that you were not actually soliciting money over the telephone at all, and what you had only intended to do was to offer to send me material in the mail which I might look over and then make a donation of an amount of my choosing, say $50. You would then have further assured me, as your brethren have many times before, that this was in no way telephone solicitation. I would then have been forced to read to you the definition of solicitation out of my handy American Heritage Dictionary; which is, Michael: 1) To seek to obtain by persuasion, entreaty, or formal application; or 2) To petition persistently. Both of these would have fit our particular conversation like chipped beef gravy on a biscuit.

MICHAEL— But, sir, I...

ME— And it is at that point in our conversation, Michael, that you would either have attempted a second dash against the defensive barriers of the definition of solicitation, or—more likely—hung up the phone without another word, or—even more likely—hung up the phone while uttering the word “asshole” slightly over your breath.

(Pause)

ME— So, Michael... Why don't we save ourselves some time, here, and you can just go ahead and pick one of those options now.

MICHAEL— (*CLICK*)

ME— Click indeed, Michael. Click, indeed.

Kanji the Coffee Lover

Until this week, I don't think I'd seen our Aspergers afflicted patron Kanji the Kid for several months. Maybe he's been coming in at times when I'm not at work, but as of late I've been at work nigh on every weekday, so the liklihood of this is far less than in the past. Despite the trouble he's made for me in the past, when he came through the door it felt like I was seeing an old friend I'd not visited with in months. I even smiled and nodded when we made eye contact.

Kanji made a loop around our entire main floor, scoping it all out before eventually approaching the circ desk to set his backpack down. About that time, Mrs. A arrived via the staff workroom door and announced to me that she'd just purchased some new coffee that she and I (being the only coffee drinkers on staff) could use in our workroom coffee-maker. It was coffee processed by a local artisan coffee shop, so we knew it would be good stuff.

"I asked for dark," she said, holding up the little bag, which was still sealed tight. "This stuff is so dark, though, it stinks." She took a good whiff of the outside of the bag and made a face. She was about to pass it to me when Kanji spied it.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Coffee," Mrs. A said, seeming to notice him for the first time.

Kanji reached out and took the package away from her and snorted deep the aroma.

"Yeah," he said, as though agreeing that it indeed smelled like good coffee. He passed the bag back to Mrs. A, who stepped into the staff workroom to put it away. Kanji followed her.

"You make it in here?" he asked, stepping into what is traditionally a Patron-No-Man's-Land.

Mrs. A looked a little uncertain as to what he was doing there, but she didn't appear to want to apply our as-yet-fictional Patron Taser to him.

"Can I get a cup?" Kanji asked.

"Oh, we don't have any made, right now," Mrs. A said.

I half expected Kanji to ask us to fire up a fresh pot, but he just looked around and then stepped back to the correct side of the circ-desk and left us alone.

Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #98 (a.k.a. "No, seriously, we STILL don't take those!")

SETTING: My "liberry" as a lady approaches the circ desk with an open topped box of books.

LADY— Where would you like donations?

ME— (Points to lower section of circ-desk) Right there would be fine.

(I see in her box a number of text books along with sundry study guides.)

ME— Oh, um, ma'am, I'm afraid we don't accept text books.

(The lady huffs and looks flustered in a way rarely seen outside of cartoons.)

LADY— But I'm... but they're not text bo.... They're not ALL text books.

ME— Actually, ma'am, it looks like quite a few of them are text books. We can't accept text books.

(And now that I look at her, I am unconvinced that this is not the very same lady who tried to bring in a box of text books a couple weeks back. Strange that she would so openly attempt it again without even covering the box. )

LADY— But I'm not even bringing them for myself. I'm bringing them for someone else.

ME— I understand that, ma'am, but we still don't accept text books.

(The lady fumes at this, flashing her eyes and huffing some more.)

LADY— Well, what am I supposed to do? Throw them away myself?!

(She snatches up her box of books and begins hauling it toward the door. Not wanting her to go away angry, I stop her.)

ME— Ma'am, if you like, I can have my library director look at them and see if there's anything we can take there. But we don't accept text books.

(The lady suddenly becomes very calm. She turns and puts her box on the desk.)

LADY— I'll be back.

(The lady then proceeds to haul in two more enormous boxes of text books from her car and sets them down on the desk next to the first box. Once they're all in, she turns and exits the building without waiting for me to first fetch Mrs. A to examine her wares. I let her go. I'm pretty sure she was indeed the same patron from before. This time we'll just throw her books away for her.)

I'll take "Places you shouldn't go" for $300, Alex.

A man I'd not seen before came in and passed a book across the circ-desk to me. I checked it in, closed out the screen without looking and turned back to him as he was still standing there.

"I need a book on electrical wiring," he said.

"Sure thing."

I looked one up for him and, as no other patrons were in need of help, walked him down to the nonfiction stacks, right to the aisle and shelf where it was located.

Twenty minutes later, he returned to the circ-desk, set his book down and looked up at me expectantly.

"Can I scan your library card, please?" I asked.

"Don't have one."

"You don't have it with you?"

"I don't have one at all."

I paused.

"You just turned in a book to us, right?"

He nodded.

"So, at some point you did have a card, right?"

"It was on my wife's card," the man said. "Use hers." And he then did that familiar, dismissive hand-gesture toward our computer's monitor, the international sign language for "Just make that dealie do the deal."

"I'm sorry, but I have to have her actual card in order to look up the record," I said.

The man's eyes flashed and I could tell he was about to go THERE. Yep, he was about to secure himself a place in the book of Patrons Who Don't Have a Library Card and, Furthermore, Plan to Throw a Shit-Fit Tantrum when Confronted by the Fact that they WILL be Needing One. We've had to deal with listed members of this particular book for quite some time and will continue on into the future.

"I can hold this for you here..." I began. And as I said it, the man's eyes flashed again, he opened his mouth and proceeded down the road to THERE. "...OR," I continued, interrupting right back while flipping a "liberry" card application onto the circ-desk with all the nimbleness of a very nimble ninja, "we can just let you fill out one of these and give you your own card."

The man started to go THERE again, paused, seemed to think a moment, perhaps considering the logic of the suggestion, and then closed his mouth. He picked up the pen I was even then nimbly offering him.

Didn't even give me shit about his drivers license or anything.

Actual Telephone Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries #97 (a.k.a. "Juice Dashes Yet More Dreams!")

*RING*

ME— Tri-Metro County Library.

PATRON— Um, yes, I was wondering… I'm calling from out of state and I was wanting to give someone in your area a Christmas present of a… a gift cer… a gift car... or, well, a gift of a library card. Is that what you have there?

ME— Library cards? Yes.

PATRON— I wanted to give them a library card for Christmas. Or, maybe there's a way you could tell if they already have a… an account? Could I do that?

ME— Well, ma'am, we would really need them to apply for… (Pause) Wait, is this for a child or an adult?

PATRON— An adult.

ME— Ah. In that case, ma'am, we would actually need them to apply for that card themselves. See, we require a drivers license number in order to issue cards to adults.

(Long pause)

PATRON— So you couldn't just let me give them the card as a gift, then?

ME— I don't think that would work very well for us.

PATRON— (Sadly) Okay.

(Giving library cards as gifts? It's a nice sentiment, I guess. A nice... cheap... sentiment.)

PATRON FIIIIIGHT!!!

"You missed all the fun on Friday," Ms. M told me upon my arrival for work Monday. "We had a fight."

"A fight?!" I said, practically salivating that fisticuffs were engaged in and wondering what on earth could have caused a "liberry" throw down. Maybe someone finally hit Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine in the mouth? Maybe Parka came back and got into a fight with Mr. Creepy Guy over which one of them was rightfully the skeeveist? Maybe there was some sort of Mr. Stanky and Bear Piss Man Vs. the Sweatiest Woman in all the Land and Mr. Stankier tag-team stank off?

"What happened? What happened?" I asked.

Ms. M shrugged. "I don't know," she said.

"You... you don't know?"

"Nope."

Perhaps after seeing my confused expression, Ms. M then explained that on Friday, while everyone else was out at lunch and she was running things solo, there had been two adult women in the library who apparently got into some sort of intense disagreement with one another and decided to take it outside. Evidently it was the least disruptive intense disagreement in the history of such things, because despite the fact that they and Ms. M were all essentially in the same room, Ms. M's first and only clue that anything was amiss came when a police officer entered the building twenty minutes later to inquire what Ms. M might have witnessed of the fight.

"There was a fight?" she reportedly asked.

"Yeah. In the parking lot. You didn't see it?" the no doubt surprised officer reportedly then said. After Ms. M admitted her cluelessness, he went on to say that, according to the ladies themselves, they'd started out arguing in the library and then resolved to take their argument outside and transition it into one of a more physical nature. Ms. M told the officer that she never heard any raised voices, nor saw any other indication that anyone was unhappy with anyone else inside the library or out. It was all news to her. The officer took her statement and went away.

Later in the day, the husband of one of the ladies phoned the library and spoke to Ms. M to apologize on behalf of his wife for causing such a ruckus. Ms. M assured him it was fine and that she hadn't actually noticed any of it, had no idea what it was about and didn't need to know.

This, of course, just pissed the rest of us right off, cause if there's going to be fighting in the "liberry" we damn well want to A) see it for ourselves, or B) get all the juicy details about it otherwise. Ms. M had clearly fallen down in her duties as a member of the "Liberry" Clubhouse Junior Detectives and/or "Liberry" Junior Gossip-Observers League.

Mrs. A has now vowed to use her connections in the police department to learn the details, but so far everyone is keeping mum.

Dear Future DUI Arrestee Patron...

...please do not think for even a moment that I did not see you go out to your vehicle, rummage around in your back seat floor and emerge with five or six empty beer cans which you then attempted to cram into our book return.

I don't know if you were being a douchebag intentionally or if you're merely illiterate and thus incapable of reading the giant BOOK RETURN sign on the front of the book return's door or if you were already too drunk to see it clearly. I personally suspect a combination of illiteracy and douchebaggery may be in evidence, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on the whole public-drunkenness thing as I did not detect fumes about your person earlier nor did you seem at all drunk.

Whatever the case, your little depository plan did not work so well due to the fact that we keep our book return locked during the day. As I noted, you seemed a mite confused on this point, until you glanced around and finally noticed the conveniently located trash receptacle nearby. Thank you for then managing to get all of your cans in ours.

Please gnaw on a loin.

--juice

Juice `N' Ash's Weekend Virginia Adventure

The wife and I went out for a bit of camping this weekend. And while there are loads of places in our area to do this, none of them are conveniently located near a gem and bead-craft show, so we traveled to Chantilly, VA to camp.

It's been a while since Ash and I have camped. In fact, the last time we set up our tent was during my first visit to the Tri-Metro area, in June of 2001, when we first came up to look for a place to stay during her schooling. The last time we camped otherwise was just after she graduated, when we took her folks over to Kumbrabow State Park for a couple of days spent in their teeny tiny camper. It was a fun time, but we spent two days searching the streams and creeks for "big trout" until a ranger clued us in that the little six inch trout we had been catching were the big trout.

While our old tent is a nice one and easy enough to set up, it's not exactly comfortable and uncramped for more than one person to stay in. This being the case, we went to K-Mart and bought a gargantu 18' by 11' tent on the logic that A) it was on sale; and B) we'd like to own a tent inside of which we could set up our old tent and still have plenty of room for us. Thus armed, we set out for Chantilly and our camping location of Bull Run State Park.

Just before we arrived at Bull Run, it rained. It was dry enough by the time we found our campsite, but the humidity rose to the point where we could see haze in the air. This felt like having our own personal Mississippi surrounding us and made setting up our new tent a sweaty experience. Having gone through a similar sweaty camping experience when tent-camping in the Florida Keys, we both thought we would soon be at one another's throats. However, after the tent was set up and we'd had a quick rinse off in the shower house, the haze cleared out and a nice breeze began to blow. We headed out for an evening's dining, Cold Stone Creamery-eating and film-watching (Stardust is excellent, by the way). By the time we returned to the tent, everything was nice and cooled off.

Bead shows are to my wife Ashley what comic cons are to me and my nerdy friends. And just as Ashley would probably be able to tolerate an hour or so spent in the dealer's room of a comic con, I can take about as much of a bead show before my eyes grow tired of all the glittery things and I have to escape. So after barely an hour spent at the bead show on Saturday, I fled to find a nerd store.

Ever since our local comic shop died back in April (the "selling new comics each week" part of it actually died in back in December, but the rest of it lingered away on life-support for a few more months) I've had to do all my comics ordering online and am still playing catch up for a lot of things. Visiting towns with proper nerd stores is a thrill for me again.

The first such store I visited was Game Parlor. As you might expect, Game Parlor was a gaming store, but with a smattering of comics. As game stores go, it seemed to be an excellent one, with three store-front sections of retail space and loads of space for actual game play in the back. Comics were thin on the ground, though, so I negotiated with the guy running things for directions to a shop with more. He drew me a map to Phoenix Comics in Fairfax.

Phoenix Comics & Toys is a fantastic little comic store. They don't have a huge amount of space, but what they have is used to its fullest. They have a great selection of current books, arranged alphabetically, as well as an impressive selection of trade paperbacks and graphic novels. And they do what I've seen only one or two other comic shops do, which is have a completely separate trade and GN section arranged by author. I spent well over an hour there and could have gone absolutely spend-crazy, but managed to reign myself in and only bought around $20 worth of stuff (including 52 #40, Doktor Sleepless #1, Following Cerebus #10 and the Vol.2 trade of Runaways).

By the time I got back to the bead show, Ash was also sick of the place and we fled to go dine on Indian food at a buffet we'd noticed earlier.

We spent another night at the campsite, for which the weather was even better. I perfected my Reese's-Peanut-Butter-Cup-Smore-Making-Technique while Ash made fun of me and constructed a more classic type of smore.

Our trip home was eventful because we were finally able to visit the Green Valley Book Fair. This is a book fair that I've been hearing about from patrons for a year or two. It's located near Harrisonburg, VA, way out on a farm that's had one of its buildings converted into retail space. Several times per year, they open it up for a week to sell of remaindered books at 60 to 90 percent off retail price. I actually found almost all of my purchases within six minutes of entering the building, for they had a table of graphic novels prominently displayed. I picked up Eddie Campbell's the Fate of the Artist, Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda, Grady Klein's The Lost Colony, Vampire Loves, and the Infinite Crisis novelization by Greg Cox, all for around $3 each. Later I found Neil Simon's memoir, Rewrites. All in all, it was a fun day and a weekend well-spent.