Sundaze

Today I went to work early, about two hours before the library opened, because I had some extra time I had to put in this week, between the ear infection and vertigo, and the house flood situation, which is amazingly still ongoing.

As I pulled into the lot, I noticed a woman standing around the front door, pacing kind of unsteadily. She saw me pull in, and without knowing if I was on staff or just meeting someone for a romantic parking lot rendezvous, she stood in the middle of the pavement, gawking at me, starting to walk to my car and then stopping herself, starting and stopping numerous times.

Oh great, I thought. She wants in. So, I took my sweet time closing my car windows, changing all my radio stations, flipping through the books I was returning, and still she stood there, still unsteady, still starting to walk toward me and then changing her mind.

Gotta face the music.

I got out of the car and she immediately called to me.

She was probably 40 feet away, and though I couldn't see her eyes or smell her breath, she slurred her words and was noticeably drunk.

Before 10 a.m. on a Sunday? Good job! Nothing like waking up early on a weekend and getting straight to the meat of your goals for the day!

She asked in elongated speech, "Do you woooooork heeeeeere?"

I said yes, and she continued slurring, "Can you let me in for just a minnnnnnnute? I have to peeeeeeeeeee."

Oh great. That's what I need: let the drunk lady in to pee and she passes out in the bathroom or she goes berserk on me because she thinks I'm someone else. Or she throws up. And knowing my luck, the cleaning guys have already been in to clean and the vomit will be my responsibility.

"No, ma'am, I'm sorry. It's against the law--"

My laws. They rule all.

"--to let anyone into the building other than during the library's hours of operation."

I prepared my explanation to be expanded if she didn't accept this and tried to push for an exception to the rule, but she didn't. She said okay, and walked away.

I yelled a suggestion that she try the park district next door, and just the motor skills it took her to stop walking and turn around to look at me again almost caused her to fall. I don't know if it was the chemically-induced state she was in or the fact that her thighs seemed to be glued together to keep the pee from streaming down, but she was not walking well.

She thanked me and then I realized what I'd just done. I'd just recommended a drunk woman get into her car and drive somewhere else. Lovely. Now what? Call the police on her?

It turns out that as memorable as she was, I forgot completely about her as I stepped into the back door of the building because I couldn't remember how to deactivate the security alarm. I figured it out before things got hairy, but the stress of that made me forget that I'd set a drunk woman out on a driving expedition to find another bathroom.

Oops.

But now that I remember, I'm wondering how long she was standing at the front door before I drove up. Was she going to wait 2 hours for the library to open or for the first staff member to arrive? And another thing: there's a forest that abuts the library. Pee in the goddamn woods, lady! I'm not taking you inside the building when the library's closed, I'm all alone and you're intoxicated.

The day of rest is usually an interesting one.