"Liberry" Glossary: Repeat Offender

Repeat Offender

-noun phrase

1. A member of the innanet crowd who signs in for computer time, stays for while, leaves, returns to sign up for more, leaves again, returns to sign up for more again, etc., repeat cycle until closing time. Repeat Offenders are not always rogue patrons, but often are. The offense inherent in their title stems from the fact that, due to our usual bad attitudes, the staff becomes completely sick of dealing with these people since we have to go out and log them onto a computer with each successive visit and we wish they would just get what they're doing done the first time and go away. We're particularly annoyed with patrons such as Germophobe Gary, who not only leave and return repeatedly throughout the day, but demand a new Clorox Disinfecting Wipe with each visit so that our keyboards might be rendered safe for him to touch. (We can't really blame him, but it is still a very annoying extra step for us.) Very often, Repeat Offenders are also the patrons who do the most amount of printing from the computers and are constantly pestering us to look at their prints, compounding our bad attitude toward them. Usual suspects among the current Repeat Offenders crowd include: Germaphobe Gary, Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, Mr. B-Natural, Mr. W. Perfect, The New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids, Johnny Hacker, Mr. Little Stupid. Former Repeat Offenders include: Parka, Crusty the Patron, Stoner Lad.
   

Christmas Party

We held the "liberry's" staff Christmas party today.

Yeah, I know, it's a little later than usual, but it's really difficult to find time in everyone's schedule to have one in December, so we decided to put it off a bit. Then a bit more. Then a bit more. And, finally, it was decided that since all of us had to gather for our semi-monthly staff meeting, we'd just have it then. So we all brought in breakfast items and feasted mightily. (I'm an enormous fan of Mrs. C's monkey bread and am now an even more enormous fan as a result of eating damn near half the pan.) Then we had our staff meeting, bitched about problem patrons for a while, then opened presents.

Much like last year's Christmas party, this year each of us picked a theme and then everyone had to go buy a present that fell within that theme, spending no more than $5 for each person. My theme last year was cookies, which I thought would be a no-brainer kind of gift. Everyone knows I love Nutter Butters and Oreos, so I figured I'd get a big bag of those, which I could climb into, zip up around my head and not emerge until I'd developed diabetes. Nope. Since it was Christmas, last year my fellow employees decided it would be better to buy me so-called "fancy" cookies, the kind that look like they would be comfortable sharing space on a tea tray. Which is great, if you're British and eat a lot of that sort of thing. However, I'm a simple guy with simple tastes and a peanut butter itch that often needs scratching, so it was kind of wasted on me.

This year I asked for coffee. And coffee I got. In all shapes and sizes, from a tasty looking bag of breakfast blend, to harder French roasty sort of things, to gift cards for local coffee shops, to candle coffee samplers, to instant coffee singles, to General Foods International Coffees. I'm quite pleased.

The other gifts I received were two stories about Mr. Crab, one fun and one disturbing.

In the first one, Mr. Crab came in and hassled Ms. D during her shift this past weekend. She caught him trying to head downstairs to our multi-purpose room, which is off-limits to the public except during scheduled events or during story-hour. (It's hard enough to keep up with the members of the public at large on our main floor, let alone those attempting to wander the un-staffed depths of the building. Ms. D has seen issues with this before.) Ms. D and Mr. Crab have also had a history of run-ins with each other, particularly during Ms. D's pre-"liberry" employment at a local chain-home improvement store. She knew what an asshole he can be and was prepared to deal with him accordingly. Ms. D confronted Mr. Crab as he attempted to descend and told him he wasn't allowed to do so. Mr. Crab snapped that he was only trying to go downstairs to read, which he did "all the time." (This was a lie, no doubt, as the only place we've ever seen him settle to read is at one of the tables on the main level.) Ms. D again explained that any past excursions were of no consequence, as he was not allowed downstairs now.

"This is a public library!" Mr. Crab reportedly then said.

"No?!" Ms. D replied in mock amazement.

And at this comeback, even Mr. Crab was unable to stifle a smile and thus lost the argument by having all his steam taken out. He was left half-heartedly complaining that we needed signs saying he couldn't go down there. I agree, frankly, but it's not like patrons EVER read signs.

This incident demonstrates what I've long known to be true, though, which is that what Mr. Crab really wants is a fight. He doesn't accidentally forget to bring his library card. He either has it and claims he doesn't or he leaves it at home on purpose just so he can get worked up about it, stir up shit and fight with someone hoping they'll relent and let him have his way without a card. He doesn't like me, though, because I refuse to argue with him. He can wail and threaten to take away money all he likes, but I'm not going to fight with him about it and unless he has his card he's leaving without books. Threats aside, it's very difficult to feel like you've won the day when you're the guy walking away empty-handed.

"I think he would die a happy man if only we'd let him check out without his card," I remarked upon espousing the above theory.

"Maybe we should let him, so he'll hurry along," Mrs. B said.

The second and more disturbing Mr. Crab story came from Mrs. A. She noted that a few years back, Mr. Crab was banned from setting foot in one of the county's post offices after he became upset with the staff there and threatened to return with his gun. They reportedly told him, "No, you won't be returning at all," and then, as officers of the United States Government, they escorted him from the building and slapped an injunction against him setting foot on the premises. Now, this is basically a rumor at this point and there are clearly all sorts of legal issues that would likely have arisen from such a threat, such as the real prospect of jail time that Mr. Crab has likely not done. Maybe courts were involved and actual restraining orders issued. Or maybe the incident was actually a bit smaller in reality and he was merely banned for some slightly lesser offense and the incident was blown out of proportion by the winds of rumor. I dunno. What I do know is that Mrs. A isn't generally taken with spreading gossip she doesn't know facts about and she does have pretty deep ties in city administration. It also doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility, knowing Mr. Crab. He can't threaten the post office with the revocation of his $200 annual donation, so what else could he do?

"You do realize that he's gonna snap one day and blow one of us away," I told Mrs. A. She nodded. And really, the idea isn't so far-fetched. I suspect he's always wanted to blow somebody away and, from what I understand, he's certainly taken out enough of God's lesser-creatures to have had his fill with them. One day, he might just decide that at his age he doesn't have anything left to lose.

Course, that'd be about the only way I'm letting him have books without his card.

Christmas Party, the fifth

The wife and I attended the Christmas party for my writing workshop last night. For the past few years it's been held at the bed & breakfast run by one of our members, everyone brings great food and wine and a fine time is had scarfing it down. Then, afterward, we have readings of some of our latest material or Christmas related stuff. This year, though, our b&b member has sold his b&b and so we had to have it at a local tea-dispensing establishment, where we dined on heavy `horse's doovers' and then did the readings.

At the end, Linda, our nefarious leader, asked us for our best Christmas memories of things we found in our Christmas stockings. Most of our class is of an age where they can remember being terribly excited to receive fruit in their stocking. We think nothing today of popping down to the market for a nice pineapple, but such exotic conveniences are a relatively recent thing, even in this country, particularly in rural areas of my state. My family never did much with stockings, growing up, so I had no memories of that. However, I did speak of a relatively recent Christmas memory of a gift I still treasure.

In the summer of 1980 I saw my first episode of the British science fiction show Doctor Who. It was an episode somewhere in the middle of the story "Revenge of the Cybermen." I was instantly transfixed by the universe presented to me, its chief resident, the Doctor, his lovely companion Sarah Jane Smith and, to a far lesser extent, his other companion Harry Sullivan. I was hooked from that moment and hungrilly sought out all things Doctor Who, from the books about the show, to the novelizations, to magazine articles, to the comics and to, eventually, the toys.

Though I didn't quite vocalize it at the time, what I wanted most in the world as a 4th grader was a Doctor Who scarf just like the one worn by Tom Baker on the show. (Yeah, I know, there were like 5 of them.) It was such a monstrous thing in both length and color scheme, but I adored the show and therefore adored the fashion sense of its characters. At the time, I didn't even consider that I might one day have an actual scarf like it. That sort of thing was only found on TV, as far as my 9 year old brain was concerned. Instead, I borrowed a muffler from my dad's then girlfriend, Nell, which I still have not returned. It looked nothing like the Doctor's scarf, being white and with tied off tassles on the end, but it was all I had and I wore it habitually.

Time travel ahead a decade or so. My friend Joe and I took a weekend trip to Hotlanta and happened to find a Nerd Shop, somewhere on the outskirts of the city. We were nearly finished with our shopping and were on the way to the counter to check out when there, lying coiled in a basket like a multi-colored snake, we spyed a single Doctor Who scarf. It was a thing of beauty and we both coveted it. However, because there was only one scarf and two of us, neither of us could purchase it for fear of drawing the eternal jealous ire of the other. If we had bought it, we would have had to work out some kind of time share deal and that seemed unwieldy. Later, I was able to search out a knitting pattern for such a scarf on a Doctor Who Usenet newsgroup, but I didn't know anyone who could knit.

Time travel ahead another decade. I'm married to a wonderful woman who had the good fortune to have been given birth by another wonderful woman, my Ma-In-Law. Ma, I learned early on, is a crafty soul who can knit all sorts of yarny goodness, if of a mind. It took me a couple of years, but slowly it dawned on me that here was a gal who COULD knit and who loved me enough that she might do me up a scarf if I asked real sweet. On Thanksgiving, in 2002, I even brought the subject up to my wife, Ashley, and asked if she thought Ma might be willing. Ashley said, no way and that a Doctor Who scarf would take forever to knit and Ma just didn't have that kind of time.

One short month later, a day or so from Christmas, we were back in North Carolina visiting family for a day before heading toward Mississippi. I was sitting in a chair, watching TV when Ashley and Ma approached carrying a double lined grocery bag, tied off by its straps. They passed it to me and stood smiling down. I took it, not even suspecting what might be inside. As I was trying to untie the straps, I caught a glimpse of knitting through the top and instantly knew what it was. Deep inside me, the 4th grade version of me snapped to attention and I began clapping my nuts N bolts stained forearms together in pure 9 year old glee. At long long last, I had my scarf. And a beautiful scarf it was, 17 feet of green and tan and brown and orange--just fantastic! Ma said it was the ugliest thing she'd ever created, but she was glad I liked it. I wrapped myself up in its length and soaked in the coolness of the very concept.

"You're gonna sleep with that thing, tonight, aren't you?" Ashley asked.

"Hell, yes, I'm going to sleep with it!" I said.

Christmas Parties, the fourth and third

We're back from our Christmas weekend, spent mostly near Fort Bragg, NC, where we had Christmas festivities at my sister-in-law Amber's house. Beyond just Christmas, we were there to see off my brother-in-law, Jim, who's headed to Afghanistan at some point in January. It was a good time, hanging out with family of both the two and four legged varieties, stuffing ourselves stupid on fantastic food and never-ending snack tables and getting to meet family-in-law I'd not met before. The entire weekend amounted to a fourth Christmas party.

As to the third...

Back on Friday, our 8 a.m. Christmas party at the "liberry" went very well. I had to get up ass-crack of 6:15 to bake up my breakfast egg dish, because I'd forgotten to prepare it the day before. So I baked some eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness and hauled it in to work to take its place along side the breakfast foods of my coworkers. We were all there, except Ms. S, who had to work at her other job. We replaced her with Mrs. S, the "liberrian" from Town-C. Tasty breakfast was consumed and theme gift baskets filled and exchanged.

My theory that many cookies could be had for under $5 each was correct, though not quite in the way I expected. My basket was overflowing with cookies, but except for the mason jar full of dry cookie ingredients given to me by Mrs. B, none of them were home made and many were of the Christmas cookie variety. Being Christmas time, this was okay, though I must confess I would have been just as happy with six packages of Oreos or Nutter Butters. (No Droxies!)

My only miscalculation was how much eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness to bring. I baked a full lasagna dish and was actually worried that it might not be enough. However, with ALL the other food we had on hand, most of us just took a small square of the egg dish and still had a plate full of other stuff. Our stomachs were quickly packed, so I wound up taking more than half of it home to my houseguests. I will note happily, though, that Mrs. J, possibly the pickiest human being on the planet when it comes to food, went back for seconds of my dish. That's a Christmas miracle on its own.

Christmas Party, the second

Okay, we've now decided on the date for our "liberry" Christmas party. But that's not what I wanted to write about here.

No, we had a different sort of "liberry" Christmas party yesterday after our Friends of the Tri-Metro "Liberry" group bought us all lunch. I even came in an hour early to join in the festivities. We had a tasty sandwich variety platter from a local bakery along with a crock pot full of potato corn soup, chips and desserts. Mighty nice of `em.

As to our Christmas party theme, I should explain first that the year after I began working for the "liberry" we have always had to have a theme for our Christmas parties in order to limit the spending of our beloved Mrs. J. If we don't pick a fund-limiting theme and talk very sternly to her about sticking to it, she'll rush off and spend her entire paycheck on presents for us. (In many ways, we're the family she wishes was really family, because her own family is pretty awful. We've often threatened to adopt her in order to take away their visitation rights.) So, in year's past, we've chosen cookies as our theme, or comfort food, or something similarly cheap.

This year's theme is gift baskets. Mrs. A found very cheap, empty baskets and bought enough for each of us to have one. We were then asked to come up with a gift-buying theme for ourselves. For instance, Mrs. J needs stuff for her kitchen so Mrs. A told her to her choose KITCHEN STUFF for a theme. And since Mrs. B has like 5000 pictures of her first grandbaby laying around, she chose PICTURE FRAMES. (The themes were all supposed to done anonymously, so that no one knew whose theme was whose, but we're all good detectives so everyone knows everyone's theme now.) We then take our list of themes and go out and buy one item per theme, spending no more than $5, then we're to get together at some point and put our stuff in the baskets.

I decided to go with something a little less permanent and chose COOKIES as my theme. I chose this because I really like cookies and I know you can buy and/or make a lot of cookies for $5. I'll likely regret the decision, but I can always share.

And when do you think we chose to have our party? Why at 8 in the morning this Friday, of course! Yep. 8 in the morning, for a Christmas breakfast party. This was near about the only time we could all get together before Christmas and still wouldn't have to worry about needing someone to watch the desk. It wouldn't be so bad, except that I'm going to have friends from out of town staying overnight, who I'll have to temporarily abandon to run off and party. Maybe we can take them to the new pub down the street and get them faced on Guinness, the night before. They'll sleep right through it.

Christmas Party, the first

Ash and I headed out to a Christmas party, last night (no, not the "liberry's" party, which we have not yet decided a date for, though we do have an interesting theme for gift exchanging). The host of the party was a fellow I know from church and from The Outdoor Drama What I Did for the Past Two Summers. I've been to parties at his place before and know them to be enjoyable and food-laden events not to be missed. Most of the people at this party were folks I didn't know, being friends of the host. But I did recognize one lady there as a patron at the library and she me--or so I thought.

We had just arrived and I was on my way to the enormous food buffet on a quest to stuff little cheesy fried sausage balls down my gob when the woman spied me and waved me over. I think she even called me by name, though it was sort of loud so I can't be sure. She introduced me to a fellow she said was her nephew and then told him that I was doing a great job "teaching for us." As inaccurate as that sounded, I decided to just let it go in favor of politely excusing myself to the buffet. But she wouldn't let it go.

"You've been at TRI-METRO HIGH for how long, now?"

"Er... I'm not."

She blinked at me for a second then said, "Oh... well... I mean, not now, but you were there?"

"Nooo," I said. "No. Not me."

"Sure, I've seen you there," she said, rather insistently. "I remember seeing you there."

"I'm not a teacher," I said.

The woman stared at me, as though I were making this up. "You're not teaching now, but you were at TRI-HIGH," she said, as though trying to give me an out from my lie.

"Er... uhm... " I said. It didn't occur to me to just tell her, No, actually, you know me from the library where I've had to bust you and your boyfriend off the computers on several occasions, not to mention that I've had to teach, reteach and reteach again the process of attaching files to email to your boyfriend, who's about the most technophobic human being I've ever met and who was nearly in a nervous fit over the process, mananged to screw it all up twice after having FINALLY attached all the files he'd intended to attach and then nearly peed himself begging me to help him do it again, as though I was actually going to deny him assistance. No. Instead, I plunged further down the awkward road of denial.

"I think the only time I've ever been to TRI-HIGH was when I once rehearsed there with the chorale."

"Ohhhhhh," she said, as though the light had suddenly gone on in her head. "That's where!"

Never mind the fact that our chorale rehearsal had been on a Saturday and she had not been there. I decided to let that lie, now that the ajar door of her world seemed firmly shut again. I imagine we'll run into one another at the "liberry" soon enough. I also imagine she'll have no recollection of any of this.

Christmas Par-Tay

Tonight was the "liberry's" Christmas Party, a day I look forward to every year. Why? Cause frankly, we know how to do a work party right. We have all the essentials: food, beer, more food, cookies and sitting around a fire telling funny stories about our crazy patrons. What more could you ask for?

Last year's party was brilliant in concept if not entirely in execution. Our theme for last year was to have a Comfort Food Party whereby we brought nothing but stick to your ribs, carb-laden comfort foods and then gorged ourselves stupid on them. Genius, no? The extra-genius part, or so we thought at the time, was that instead of exchanging gifts or doing Dirty Santa or something, we each baked several dozen cookies, one dozen for each staff-member, and exchanged those. We also baked an extra dozen which we would share around Mrs. A's home coffee table. Well, as you can read HERE, it didn't work out so good. After stuffing our gobs with mashed potatoes, fried chicken and mac & cheese we had no room or desire left whatsoever for cookie sampling. I think Mrs. A's dog ate more cookies than anyone else, but that was mostly because Mrs. B left her basket of gift cookies lying on the floor where the pooch could get at it. That, my friends, was one fat beagle.

This year we decided not to let our eyes get quite as big as our stomachs. We still did the cookie exchange part, but this year we went with a different theme. We thought about it long and hard and decided to do an appetizer party on the grounds that the best part of any meal is the appetizers. So tonight we had a nice little feast of appetizers. My wife and I brought both chicken curry dip and spinach artichoke dip along with the requisite Triscuits and little toasted bread slices on which to eat it. Other staff members brought cheesy dip, meatballs, bruchetta, crab dip, and, one of my all time favorites, Li'l Smokies. Our theory--which admittedly was on shaky ground to start with--is that by only eating appetizers off of small plates we would somehow have room left for cookies afterward. However, as we learned, you can stuff a LOT of appetizers on a small plate. And you can go back for more as many times as you want. So by the end of the meal, we were all still pretty stuffed, though not quite as much as last year.

Then we sat around Mrs. A's fireplace, passed Mrs. C's infant nephew around the room, kept the dog out of the food and ate cookies and cookies and cookies. Mrs. C made even made pecan pie bars just for me, as she knows they are my one true weakness--my Achilles heel, if you will. And yes, even in our carb-charged euphoria, we still managed to tell a few patron stories. Mostly old ones about The Dufus and about other similar computer patrons who refuse to log off when asked, even when the library is closing. It's a subject my wife has strong feelings about.

"I keep telling him, he'd have a lot less trouble with people if he would just scream at them a few times," she said. "Let someone stay on the computer a bit too long and just go back and scream `GET THE HELL OFF, NOW!' and that kind of thing would clear up quick."

The whole reason the subject of the Dufus came up was because Mrs. C's sister asked if Mrs. A's house--a house formerly owned by the Dufus's grandmother, I should add--was haunted. I said, "Well I know one former resident who you'd better hope never comes back to haunt it." That would be hell to have the Dufus as a ghost. For one thing, he'd spend all his time hogging up your computer, replying to his ghost spam and refusing to get off.

Comfort Food Par-Tay

This past Monday we had our "liberry" Christmas party, featuring the previously heralded theme of Comfort Food & Cookies.

The food was fantastic, the company excellent and a glaze of carbohydrate-euphoria (i.e. "comfort") settled over everyone.

The cookie part supposedly involved us mixing and baking 8 dozen cookies to give to our fellow employees as gifts. I cheated and baked 8 dozen store-bought peanut butter cookies with mini Reese's cups in them instead.

And Mrs. J was able to make it too. She's doing much better, though she still can't get around as well as she'd like nor eat much.

My only complaint with the evening is that I couldn't eat much either. Not that I didn't try my best. It's just that my and my wife's digestive systems have now been altered by our near 3 month long stint on the Atkins program so that we, sadly, can no longer consume the mass quantity of food that we used to. I used to be able to put away two brimming-full plates of food and have room for desert. Now, I'm lucky if I have room to breathe after one plate. It's great for our health but is a massive bitch otherwise. When we cheat, we feel obligated to really do some damage, but we just can't now and it pisses us off. We weren't the only ones in that boat at the party, though. After our meal the entire staff sat around looking at all the plates of tasty cookies none of which we had any desire to eat because our brains were screaming "YOU'RE FULL, YOU FOOLS!"

After dinner, we all gathered in Mrs. A's living room where we took turns keeping her dog out of the cookies and telling each horror stories about problem patrons. (Ironic, in that Mrs. A's living room is the former living room of the Dufus's grandmother.) A couple of employees from libraries in neighboring towns joined us at the party and we were surprised at how many problem patrons we have in common, but it was valuable to share our most effective techniques for dealing with them.

The Greatest and Best Blog Entry in the World... tribute

Today was a day most "liberry" bloggers would dread. It was almost entirely uneventful. Some might even say boring. Our only Rogue was Mr. B-Natural, who came in with his dog and proceeded to behave himself admirably. Makes me almost long for the days when he would get all worked up at having to share a computer hallway with the likes of the Untalented Mr. Ripley, or throw a huge tantrum if we told him his time was up and someone else was waiting for his computer. The worst he did today was turn the computer sign-in clipboard upside down before signing his name. This is standard procedure for Mr. B-Natural, who seems to be operating under the misconception that it somehow annoys us that he does this. Far from it. It actually makes it easier for us to read his name from the other side of the counter and therefore see when it's time to ask him to get off. (We once printed up a special sign-in sheet that was exactly the same no matter which direction he turned it in. He failed to notice, killing our practical joke.)

Probably the most eventful moment of today's workday came when I and Mrs. A and Mrs. C, the librarians, came up with the greatest and best food-theme in the world for our upcoming staff Christmas party.

In years past we've either gone out to eat or done a covered dish dinner where everyone brings a dish or two and a mighty feast commences. These have been most enjoyable occasions, but this year we wanted to do something different. We were wanting something similar to the covered dish dinner, but which somehow involved buckets of KFC chicken being brought in.

(And while I'm at it, let me just mini-rant on KFC's whole "Hey, get us, our chicken is low-carb friendly, so you're not gonna get fat eating it" ad campaign. Yeah, it's low carb... IF YOU REMOVE THE POUND AND A HALF OF BREADING ON IT! What a bunch of damned morons!)

So, anyway, Mrs. A really wanted the KFC to be a part of all this, as she's been craving it like mad for days. Then we hit upon the brilliant part. Fried chicken is comfort food, so why don't we just throw a comfort food party and bring nothing but huge vats of carb-laden fatty dishes we can all stuff ourselves with until we're soaked in food afterglow.

Oh, and cookies too! I almost forgot the cookies!!!! We're each gonna bring, like, 8 dozen cookies, so we'll have 8 different 8 dozen batches of different kinds of cookies. This way, everyone can walk away with a cookie sampler pack of at least a dozen different cookies. It's just frickin' brilliant, I tells ya! BRILLIANT!!!!

Frankly, it's such a stroke of damned genius that I really don't need anything else interesting to share today.

Comfort... Food... Party.

Three words defining true blog value right there.

I could have just signed on, spat that out there and walked away and it would have been a fine entry. Being the benevolent soul I am, through, I threw in the 8 dozen cookies variety pack for bonus added value.

Good night, everybody. Thanks for coming. Don't forget to tip your waitress!

(Continued)