Sometimes Standing Urine is a Good Thing (Moving Days O)

It was standard afternoon shift. I had been going about my day and things were actually turning out fairly well. Then I saw Mr. Big Stupid coming out of the men's restroom and my view on the day fell. I can't say for sure that Mr. Big Stupid was smirking upon his exit, but something about his manner sounded alarm bells in my head. I was also reminded that I hadn't checked the men's restroom for cleanliness since my arrival at work.

Sure enough, as soon as I walked in the door, bucket of cleaning products already in hand, I saw the dreaded sight and knew what Mr. Big Stupid had been smirking about. I marched back out the door, over to the circ desk and retrieved our temporary-signage folder from its hiding place. Seeing that my boss, Mrs. A, was standing nearby, I held up my "RESTROOM CLOSED, PLEASE USE DOWNSTAIRS RESTROOM" sign for her to see.

"What is it?" she said.

"Two words," I said. "Standing Urine."

"Oh, no."

Yes, indeedy, there was a wide puddle of urine covering much of the floor in front of the urinal. For the record, Mr. Big Stupid was not even a suspect, as he had been not present for the previous standing urine incident and had likely only been smirking at the knowledge that someone else would have to clean up what he'd just seen on the floor. Most likely the person responsible for the urine was one of our regular mentally handicapped patients from Unobstructed Doors.

After a brief search, I found our mop and mop bucket in housekeeping, filled the bucket with warm water, grabbed the Comet, affixed my sign to the bathroom door (if you don't put a sign on the door, patrons wander on in and, despite your obvious efforts to mop up the urine, they track through it anyway to leave some of their own) and headed in to do battle. Unfortunately, after using most of the Comet during the previous incident, there was less than half a tablespoon left in the container, so I then had to go back out and fetch our jug of bleach. Much diluting and sloshing ensued, followed by mopping, cursing under breath and vows to find the culprit and visit unspeakable punishments upon them. Soon the room was filled with bleach fumes. I began to suspect this wasn't a safe thing, so I went over to the restroom's window, intending to open it and help disperse the fumes.

First, a note about the restroom windows: I've mentioned recently how our architect had some rather dangerous ideas about how public buildings should operate and our new restrooms were a major part of that. When he designed the restrooms for our main floor, he included in them the exact same windows that had been installed in the rest of the building, which are very tall, sliding pane windows that allow in the greatest amount of light possible by being very very clear, with no window screens, but which also had venetian blinds in case, I presume, it got too bright to poop. Yes, that's right, the architect installed large, crystal clear windows in ground level restrooms both of which were in direct view of the parking lot. Now, granted, because of the way the interior of the restrooms were arranged, people on the outside would not be able to view people on the inside actually using toilets nor urinals through those windows, but they could certainly see people walking around and washing their hands (hopefully) after using said facilities. Regardless, the presence of those windows made the restrooms feel extremely non-private in a way the vast majority of public restrooms I've been in--including all of the ones I used in Central America, some of which were quite terrifying in other respects--don't. We also had to consider the unsavory possibility of someone like Chester setting up a damned chair outside the ladies' room and having himself an oggle-party. So, shortly before we opened, Mrs. A had Ms. D install some opaque window film over the lower section of both public restroom windows and that solved that.

So, seeking to release the bleach fumes from my particular restroom, I went to the window, raised the blinds and was about to unlatch the lower window pane when I discovered that someone had already unlatched it for my convenience. With barely any effort, I was able to raise the window to the full, open and unscreened position without having to unlatch it first.

"Oh, shit," I said. I then ran to find Mrs. A.

"We have a major problem in there," I said. "Beyond the urine," I added.

"What?" Mrs. A said.

I told her about the window and about my brand new theory that this very unlatched window was how our recent thieves could have gained after hours access to the building. All they had to do was unlatch the window during normal operating hours then come back later and hop on through. The only other possible excuse for it being unlatched, that I could think of, was if Mrs. J had unlatched it to let bleach fumes disperse the last time she'd mopped. The trouble is, Mrs. J is far too short to have reached the latches and has no sense of smell to alert her to the presence of fumes in the first place--which is why she often cannot smell if a mop is moldy and will just go right ahead and use these "ass mops" to do the floors, rendering the building equally assy.

Mrs. A was quite irritated, as windows that patrons can unlatch was a point she'd already raised with the architect back when the building was in the planning stages, a point he'd not been able to fathom. (That was also the same meeting where she raised the point about it being a bad idea to have crystal clear windows into said ground level bathrooms, a point that also went unfathomed.)

Now, here's where our "liberry" clubhouse junior detective skills went off the rails. While we immediately made it policy to check the latches on this and all other ground-level windows as part of normal closing duties, at no point did it occur to us to have the police come round to dust the window for possible prints. Granted, there's a good chance that the latches would only have contained the prints of either the staff or the shitty sub-contractors (a.k.a. the true criminals in this story), but there's a chance it could have nabbed the prints of the cash-box thieves as well. Instead, we just changed our closing policy and, within a few days, Mrs. A had Ms. D go around the building and seal all the ground-level windows shut with L-brackets to prevent this sort of thing in the future.

(TO BE CONTINUED...)

And the stars aligned (a.k.a. "The Password STILL is...")

Wow the computers were lousy with Rogues! At one point we had Matilde the Cranky Wiccan, Jimmy the Anonymous Snitch, Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine and three members of The New Devil Twins Auxiliary League of Neighborhood Kids using at the same time. This is even more impressive than last week's Rogue Constellation Alignment when Mr. Big Stupid and Mr. Little Stupid were both using at the same time.

As usual, the League of Kids descended on us in a clump to sign up for computers. I went out and logged them onto the second, third and fourth computers on one side of the computer bank, skipping the first one, a 15-minute station that I'd logged off not five minutes before. I then returned to the sign in clip-board to mark which computers I'd placed them on and make sure they'd listed their sign on times. When I turned `round again, though, I noticed that one of the kids was seated at the 15-minute station and had its desktop loaded up and everything.

Dammit! They knew the passwords AGAIN!

Okay, so it wasn't exactly a difficult password to hack, especially considering it was actually the old password that the League already knew. With all the recent computer installation and printer and password issues that have been going on, we finally got the tech guys to go in and set all the logins and passwords to the same thing and make the stations all print to the same printer. Only, the tech guys changed all the passwords back to the old old password, the same single letter it had been back before we got them to change all the passwords to my initials. The League all knew the old old password, so here they were again with free access.

Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, since the only reason to have passwords—y'know, beyond our whole need to wield power over people and feel all mighty and stuff—is that requiring them forces patrons to come sign in at our clip board, allowing us to both count them as computer users in our stats and to know who signed on when so we'll know who to kick off when.

I busted the kid off the 15 minute station, didn't say anything to him about knowing the password and then went to write a note to Mrs. A explaining the situation.

We've now changed all the passwords, this time to the initials of a staff member other than myself.

Stinking Innanet Crowd!

I'm so disappointed in our computer patrons. Now that Crusty Dave has provided us with a genuine threat to temperament, nose and the holding down of lunch, none of our regular innanet crowders seem willing to help us get rid of him. 

See Crusty has proven himself perfectly willing to stay on our computers all day long, and, provided no one is in need of his computer due to the other two computers being taken up by patrons, he can actually get away with it. In order to bust him off, we need at least three other people who want computers at the same time. The trouble is, Crusty Dave is very very stinky. It's not quite the slap-you-in-the-face-with-a-dead-fish stench of Mr. Stanky, but it's ultimately a more pervasive stench because it has so much time to build up. Once any other computer user gets around him, they find their desire to stay there quickly diminishes and rarely stay for their full half hour. So for most of the day, there was at least one and often two computers open. 

At one point, Crusty had some competition from Gene Gene the Geneal0gy Machine, a relatively recent addition to our benign irritants gallery whose major claim to infame is his tendency to tell anyone who gets too close to him the mind-numbingly boring details of his geneal0gy research. (We make it a point never to engage him in conversation of any kind because he forcefully steers it back around to his favorite topic every single time.) 

Gene got his computer a couple hours after Dave's first sign-in and I was glad to have him, because Gene can hog up the computer time better than most and has the added bonus of not stinking. Soon, another patron took the last computer and before long a kid came in and signed up for Crusty's. I let Crusty know he needed to get off, but by the time he actually got around to getting off the kid had left the building and I didn't technically have anyone waiting. I kept that bit of information to myself, though, and Crusty departed. 

I had barely had time to clean up his crust and spritz down his chair with Febreeze when he returned and signed up again. By then, unfortunately, the other computer patron had also departed, leaving only Gene. And by the time I had another computer-competition-trifecta, I then had to bust Gene off. 

Gene, while signing out, said something about possibly coming back later. I tried to get him to go ahead and sign up for another session right then. I was even willing to stand there and engage him in geneal0gy talk until his turn came up, but he decided he would go away for a bit first. 

So for the rest of my workday, Crusty and his intense stench held sway over the computer hall and indeed the landing above it. I spent the day cursing the usual innanet crowders for being so disloyal to us and Crusty for officially ruining Febreeze's Linen & Sky scent. 

Where the hell are our tried and true faithful? Why aren't they flocking to us in great numbers? (For it is only in great numbers that we will be able to stave off the evil!) I'll take nearly any of them, really, provided they're not stinky. Where is the Devil Twin Auxiliary League? Or the Devil Twins themselves?! I'd be willing to cut them some slack on fines if they'd just monopolize a couple of computers for a few hours for me. Where is Mr. B-Natural? Or Crazed Mom? Or Mr. Big Stupid? Or Kanji the Kid? Or The Dufus? Where are they? I'll take Mrs. Bellows or the Internet Neophyte, too, and will even show them how to load "the innanet." 

God help me, I'll even take Parka's dumb ass back. 

There! I said it! I said his name, have given him power and summoned him from the depths of whatever Stygian pit he's been trolling around for the past few blissful, Parka-Free months! Bring it on!!!

Speaking of losers...

Beyond Seefiling, my day was spent running back and forth to the computer hall every 20 minutes or so to roust yet another member of the Internet Crowd from their joy of joys so another patron could get on. The computers stayed packed the whole day long.

I was also shocked that both Mr. Big Stupid AND Parka turned up before 3 p.m. today, instead of at the crack of closing time. Mr. Big Stupid managed a "Gotney`puters,buddy?" before I could tell him he had a sixteen minute wait. Parka (who, by the way, no longer wears his trademark enormous white parka, being as how it's Summer and all, and has now switched to a ratty, sweat-stained, white v-neck t-shirt, the kind that's made of some sort of synthetic fabric that's really too thin and semi-translucent to be worn as anything but an undershirt but he does it anyway just because he's such a big sweaty mongoloid, instead) had to actually wait in line for several minutes before he could utter his "MAY I PLEASE SIGN UP TO USE A COMPUTER" catchphrase. We had to roust him off after half an hour, but he just kept coming back to plague us more throughout the day. Just when we thought we'd seen the last of him he'd turn back up to chat with his e-skanks and pound the space bar with far more force than necessary. His final appearance was 20 minutes before closing time, which meant he wanted to stay on AFTER closing time. I had to go back and stand there tapping my foot.

"I'm getting off right now," he said, still typing away for another minute.

I've decided that the thing that infuriates me about him the most, even beyond his computer hogging and his whole catchphrase thing, is that he has no concept of what our hours are. Every day. EVERY... SINGLE... DAMNED... DAY... this superfluous butthole in humanity's crack asks, "What are your hours tomorrow?" Now that might not seem like the sort of thing that should offend, particularly when our library does have some degree of variance in hours on weekends and Mondays. But after you've answered the question twelve thousand times and each time the answer is "NINE TO SEVEN" and it still ain't sunk into his pointy little porn-addled skull, you might tend to get a little pissy about it too.

I'm thinking of having a T-shirt made up with our hours emblazoned on it in huge red letters. Or just start answering him with our full week's schedule of hours every time he asks, using a loud Don Pardo voice. Yup. That might be good for a few jollies.

Gonna be a Nettin' War

Had us an Internet Crowd Gang War on Thursday. Nearly all the IC Rogues turned up at some point during the day and most had to wait a while.  They were thus very grumpy campers. Oddly, Parka was not among them. I kept trying to keep all the computers tied up by letting patrons log back on (including Nearsighted Dave and his apparent step-son, who's not nearly as nearsighted) just so he'd have to wait when he got there, but he didn't turn up. Almost as bad, though, Mr. Big Stupid lurched through the door with his usual, "Got`ny `puters?" Oh, so sorry. There's a 10 minute wait for you. He looked satisfyingly disappointed.

Two Rogues who did turn up and who were summarily turned away were Jimmy the "Anonymous" Snitch and The Amazing Bladderboy. I had to bite my cheek to keep from saying, "Hey, I thought your ass was in jail."

The computers were all full when they came in. I told Jimmy that it would be a 15 minute wait at the very least. (And by the end of 15 minutes, we would be hovering at 15 til closing time, at which point I could shut the computers down due to all the signs we have posted saying that the computers will be shut down at 15 til, thus sparing Jimmy the use of a computer at all.) My master plan was only partially foiled, though, when Jimmy and Bladders simply left.

Suddenly, at 15 til close, ALL the computer users gave up and fled the library all at once. I quickly dashed back and turned the computers off to prevent future attempts. Not that this stops some of the computer crowd. One of our newer internet addicts turned up exactly at closing one day last week and asked if she could check her e-mail "real quick."

"I'm sorry, but we're closed," I told her.

"Guess that means you turned off the computers, then?" she said hopefully.

"Yes," I said, dashing her hopes. She'd already been in three separate times that day. What more did she really need?

By the end of the day we had 37 computer users. ("Thirty seven?  In a row?") Which is a good 10 more than usual.

Grump Day II

Yesterday also marked both the appearance of and activity with a couple of Rogue members.

I learned that Kammy K, the book hoarding Bizatch, has received her letter from us demanding she return or pay for the ILL she's been hoarding since May (along with our less than subtle threat of legal action should she continue to ignore us). Actually, one of her fellow employees signed for the letter, so we technically don't know that Kammy has read it. Doesn't matter. It's still padding for our Kammy K. file, which we'll be hauling into court against her should that day come.

Thursday was also distinguished by an appearance from Mr. Big Stupid, one of the low on the totem pole members of the Rogues Gallery. Mr. Big Stupid is a big, stupid-looking and sounding fellow who is still somehow a member of the Liberry Intanet Crowd. Mr. Big Stupid's claim to fame is the way he lumbers into the "liberry," usually after 6 p.m., very often after 6:40, approaching the crack of closing time, and belches out the phrase "Heybuddy, how'sitgoin? Yougot'ney`puters?" Mind you, he doesn't actually wait to hear what your answer is. He's already made his X on the sign up sheet and is headed back to get him a `puter before you have a moment to tell him that, No, we don't have any `puters free, he's gonna have to wait. As with most of the Intanet Crowd, such news makes him cranky and causes him to give you a dirty look. And when, more often than not, he rolls in at closing time to use a computer, he also gets cranky and dirty-looking when you have to tell him he doesn't have any time to go online. He's also been known to throw a minor fit when asked to get off the computer when his time has run out. Fortunately, when he ambled in the door Thursday, at the unusual hour of 5:20 pm, our computers were free and he was able to attach himself to one right away, sparing me the dirty look.

Dawn of the Dufus Part III

When the Dufus wasn't lobbying for a job with us, he was plenty busy being a smarmy little turd-blossom on a day to day basis. His interactions with library staff, or indeed anyone else, were peppered with his usual name-droppings. It was as if he could not exist without letting everybody know that he has had some degree of interaction with a few people whose names we might recognize and is therefore worthy of recognition himself. And anyone who came within twenty feet of him got their own personal copy of his lone article about the library. (I once saw him on the street corner, promising a passerby whose aquaintance he had just made a copy of that most blessed work.)

And because he's obviously such an enormously important individual, library rules like time limits on the patron computers obviously don't apply to him. With most patrons, all you have to do is let them know their time is up and someone is waiting for their computer and you walk away, affording them the time to wrap up what they're doing and log off. With the Dufus, the ONLY way to get him to get off a computer was to go back and tell him his time was up and then stand there like the Colossus at Rhodes, giving him the stank eye until he actually got off. If you didn't, he would immediately start a new and lengthy e-mail as soon as you stepped away, and would often try to start one while you stood there waiting.

And what was so all-fired important that he just HAD to write just one last e-mail? Normally, I wouldn't know because I don't make it a habit to pry into what sort of activities our patrons are up to on the net. But since I was usually the guy who had to stand there giving him the stank eye, I sussed it out pretty quick.

Was the Dufus, perhaps, writing to a grant agency, pleading with them for library funds? No.

Was the Dufus corresponding with friends back West? Oh, no, my friends, no.

The Dufus was, in fact, REPLYING TO HIS SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That's right. The Dufus read each and every e-mail he was sent, spam or not, and replied to all of it. Never mind that most spam can't be replied to, the Dufus tried it anyway. And would tell you about it!!! In great detail!!!!

"George W.'s office just sent me an e-mail asking for a campaign contribution," he said, referring to an obvious mailing-list spawned e-note. "They want $20,000. Well, I'm writing them back and tell them what I think of the way they're running the country right now. And I'm not going to send them anything."

He also enjoyed trying to discuss current events with you, but kept twisting the events around to suggest he was actively involved in them.

"You know, it's a sad day that Arnold Schwarzeneggar was elected governor of California," he once said. Then he added, "Well, I might go to the inaugural ball, but I'm not making any donations."

Now why would a guy who supposedly has all this money that everyone keeps wanting him to give them have any need to hog up the patron computers at a public library? Couldn't he just buy his own computer and while away the hours at his parents' house replying to all his spam until his heart was content?

All his computer shennanigans were irritating enough, but the Dufus usually chose to do them dangerously close to closing time. He'd pop in for a computer at a half an hour til close (surpassing even Mr. Big Stupid in inconvenient computer usage) or less. You would think that telling someone "We're closed now" would be more of an incentive to get off the computer than merely saying "Your time is up." Alas, it was not the case. I would warn him 15 minutes before closing that we would be closing in 15 minutes. Then, 10 minutes. Then, 5 minutes. Then, we're closed. Then, no, really, we are closed. Then, I'm not kidding, we truly are closed as of five minutes ago. Then, I'm locking the door and turning off the lights. You need to be on the other side of it when I do.

And while I would have been well within my rights and posted computer policy to just shut the damned computer off in his face, I've always chosen to try the polite route first. Again, though, the only effective method was to just go Colossus on him and stand there til he got off. (Or hit him with a chair, though I only fantasized about that option.)

It seems the Dufus may no longer be bothering us so regularly. A couple of months ago we heard he took a position with the board of directors of a foundation established by a half-way famous long dead WV author in said author's former home town. We considered calling them up to warn them but figured if they hadn't been able to see through his smarm-infested weasel nature they probably deserve him.

His position there may or may not have gone well for him. As of Friday, Mrs. A informed me that the Dufus had moved out of the area entirely. He hasn't returned to the West Coast, but is at least a comfortable distance away in a neighboring state where he is probably even now plaguing library assistants.

The Dufus, 2003-2003, Inactive Member of the Liberry Rogues Gallery.