Yesterday I was teaching a patron how to use photo editing software and I'd just finished illustrating the way to crop a picture, by drawing a box around the area to keep and clicking to crop to the selection.
She very innocently looked at me and asked, "So, where does the rest of the photo go when you crop it?"
I blinked. I waited for her to rephrase the question. She continued looking at me in awe. She meant exactly what she said.
I said, "To heaven," and then I laughed to let her know I was joking, because she believed me for a moment.
When I later related the story to my coworkers, one said, "It goes to Milwaukee."
Another countered that no, when you get rid of it and don't want it, "It goes to Detroit."
Finally, my favorite answer came from another coworker who reacted to the first two responses by saying, "No way! It's a crop. It goes to Iowa."
Thus, I have my answer for next time.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Costumes
We have a coworker who has been having a lot of fun with the Halloween costumes this week.
Monday she came in and wore a sticker that said, "Hello, my name is Mary" and her hair was sticking in the air. I thought momentarily that she was Mary from Something About Mary, but if you knew this woman you would think twice, like I did, and profess to have no idea what the costume meant. My first instinct was right, much to my shock.
Yesterday she came in with Smarties candies pinned all over her pants. She was a smarty-pants.
Today she had the word "book" on her face, with B and O on one cheek and O and K on the other. I looked at her and my initial idea was, this girl is a total book-head, but that was dumb so clearly not the costume.
She was getting frustrated and said, "Where is it?!"
I said, "Uh, you have book on your face."
She stomped her feet and said, "Say it the other way now!"
"OH, Facebook!"
That one was tough, in my opinion.
So, I followed Christi out to the desk today to see if she could get the costume.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Christi?
Christi looked at her and said a couple hmms, then finally stated, with no humor at all, "Oh, I get it: B.O. So you have B.O. and you're O.K. with it."
I had to sit on the floor I was laughing so hard.
Monday she came in and wore a sticker that said, "Hello, my name is Mary" and her hair was sticking in the air. I thought momentarily that she was Mary from Something About Mary, but if you knew this woman you would think twice, like I did, and profess to have no idea what the costume meant. My first instinct was right, much to my shock.
Yesterday she came in with Smarties candies pinned all over her pants. She was a smarty-pants.
Today she had the word "book" on her face, with B and O on one cheek and O and K on the other. I looked at her and my initial idea was, this girl is a total book-head, but that was dumb so clearly not the costume.
She was getting frustrated and said, "Where is it?!"
I said, "Uh, you have book on your face."
She stomped her feet and said, "Say it the other way now!"
"OH, Facebook!"
That one was tough, in my opinion.
So, I followed Christi out to the desk today to see if she could get the costume.
Have I mentioned lately how much I love Christi?
Christi looked at her and said a couple hmms, then finally stated, with no humor at all, "Oh, I get it: B.O. So you have B.O. and you're O.K. with it."
I had to sit on the floor I was laughing so hard.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Patron Questions
Patron: You know your nametag is upside down.
Me: Yeah, that’s so I can read it. How else will I know who I am?
Patron (looking at his own embroidered name on his uniform): My name is right side up.
Me: That’s too bad. How are you supposed to remember your name that way?
Patron: You’re right. I should get them to change it.
He tried to pronounce his name backward and we laughed.
I took the nametag off and put it in my pocket. I was done with the nametag, which was clearly far too complicated for my simple mind.
Me: I can’t believe I’ve been out here for hours and hours and no one told me my name was upside down. Ah, well, I don’t want anyone to know my name anyway.
Patron: I know your name.
Me: Well you’re special.
Patron: Heeee.
Patron: So, how long have you been a librarian?
Me: Well, I’ve worked here 18 years, but I’ve only been a librarian for about the last 3 years.
Patron: And you’re the naughty librarian, eh?
Me (in mock horror): ME!? Who told you about me?
Patron: Oh, no one had to tell me. I can see it in your smile. I knew it right away – yep, naughty librarian.
Damn, my cover’s blown.
Patron: Don’t you guys have a Halloween section?
Me: What kind of Halloween stuff are you looking for?
Patron: Good ol’ fashioned Halloween stuff.
Me: Oh, that kind. No. Sorry. You’re too late. We’re already prepping for Christmas now. We’re like the stores, you know? And I’m not talking about Christmas this year. We’re working on Christmas for 2011. You’re already over a year behind for Christmas, and for Halloween this year – pshaw! You should’ve seen us in April of 2009. What’s the matter with you?
Patron: I guess I just didn’t realize…
Me: Well, now you do.
Patron: Funny girl. That’s why I come to you with all my questions. And why isn’t there anything for grownups for Halloween anymore?
Me: Sure there is. Halloween stuff falls into two categories these days: little kid stuff and slutty stuff. The sluttier, the better. Costumes give women the opportunity to be total whores and just bat their eyelashes and say, “But it’s just a costume. I’m not really this slutty.” Uh-huh. So, are you looking for the slutty Halloween section?
Patron: OHMYGOD, you’re right! Costumes are getting sluttier!
Me: I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before.
Patron: Actually, I’m looking for CDs with spooky sound effects. Where would those be?
Me: Slutty spooky sound effects?
Patron: Uh, no, probably not.
Me: Kids stuff. See how it works?
Patron: Oh man, I think you just ruined Halloween for me.
Me: DUDE, it’s the sluttiest season there is. Enjoy it!
Patron (laughing): You’re right! Tits and ass everywhere! What’s not to love?!
Patron: I need some information on clarinets. The parts of them. You can look that up, but I have to go to the washroom, so I’ll be right back.
Me: You better.
He looked at me for a moment as if he didn’t understand those two simple words I just uttered and then realized I was joking and made a very lame attempt at a forced laugh.
I looked at Marina.
Me: He’s scared of me now. Bwahahaha! Score! I bet he doesn’t come back.
Marina: He may not.
He did. We spent the next half hour cracking jokes, and he taught me about why they prefer Beechler mouthpieces in Mexico.
I guess I didn’t scare him – threatening him made him feel more at ease.
My patrons are weird.
When they’re weird in a good way and we bond, I just love my patrons.
Me: Yeah, that’s so I can read it. How else will I know who I am?
Patron (looking at his own embroidered name on his uniform): My name is right side up.
Me: That’s too bad. How are you supposed to remember your name that way?
Patron: You’re right. I should get them to change it.
He tried to pronounce his name backward and we laughed.
I took the nametag off and put it in my pocket. I was done with the nametag, which was clearly far too complicated for my simple mind.
Me: I can’t believe I’ve been out here for hours and hours and no one told me my name was upside down. Ah, well, I don’t want anyone to know my name anyway.
Patron: I know your name.
Me: Well you’re special.
Patron: Heeee.
Patron: So, how long have you been a librarian?
Me: Well, I’ve worked here 18 years, but I’ve only been a librarian for about the last 3 years.
Patron: And you’re the naughty librarian, eh?
Me (in mock horror): ME!? Who told you about me?
Patron: Oh, no one had to tell me. I can see it in your smile. I knew it right away – yep, naughty librarian.
Damn, my cover’s blown.
Patron: Don’t you guys have a Halloween section?
Me: What kind of Halloween stuff are you looking for?
Patron: Good ol’ fashioned Halloween stuff.
Me: Oh, that kind. No. Sorry. You’re too late. We’re already prepping for Christmas now. We’re like the stores, you know? And I’m not talking about Christmas this year. We’re working on Christmas for 2011. You’re already over a year behind for Christmas, and for Halloween this year – pshaw! You should’ve seen us in April of 2009. What’s the matter with you?
Patron: I guess I just didn’t realize…
Me: Well, now you do.
Patron: Funny girl. That’s why I come to you with all my questions. And why isn’t there anything for grownups for Halloween anymore?
Me: Sure there is. Halloween stuff falls into two categories these days: little kid stuff and slutty stuff. The sluttier, the better. Costumes give women the opportunity to be total whores and just bat their eyelashes and say, “But it’s just a costume. I’m not really this slutty.” Uh-huh. So, are you looking for the slutty Halloween section?
Patron: OHMYGOD, you’re right! Costumes are getting sluttier!
Me: I’m not saying anything that hasn’t been said before.
Patron: Actually, I’m looking for CDs with spooky sound effects. Where would those be?
Me: Slutty spooky sound effects?
Patron: Uh, no, probably not.
Me: Kids stuff. See how it works?
Patron: Oh man, I think you just ruined Halloween for me.
Me: DUDE, it’s the sluttiest season there is. Enjoy it!
Patron (laughing): You’re right! Tits and ass everywhere! What’s not to love?!
Patron: I need some information on clarinets. The parts of them. You can look that up, but I have to go to the washroom, so I’ll be right back.
Me: You better.
He looked at me for a moment as if he didn’t understand those two simple words I just uttered and then realized I was joking and made a very lame attempt at a forced laugh.
I looked at Marina.
Me: He’s scared of me now. Bwahahaha! Score! I bet he doesn’t come back.
Marina: He may not.
He did. We spent the next half hour cracking jokes, and he taught me about why they prefer Beechler mouthpieces in Mexico.
I guess I didn’t scare him – threatening him made him feel more at ease.
My patrons are weird.
When they’re weird in a good way and we bond, I just love my patrons.
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Steep and Thorny Way
Today, my friend Eric informed me that he was telling his brother about me, how much weight I’d lost and how I’d done it, what a huge feat it was, etc. I was incredulous.
He said to me, “You have to be so proud of yourself for doing that! That’s HUGE! Just getting to the point where you have the mindset to get going is HUGE. The rest, 90 pounds, that’s amazing! You have to be proud of that!”
No. I’m not. Not really. And I’ll tell you why.
Throughout the years, I’ve read all kinds of stories by people who lost a lot of weight, how it changed their lives, how they’ll never go back to what they were, and how if they can do it, you can do it too!
Gag.
Fuck that shit. Those lying ho-bags left out the biggest, baddest, meanest little factoid in the whole damn story: it’s horrible!
Where they get their little happy pills, I don’t know, because I’m bitter. I’m angry. I’m not digging any of this. It’s a monster of a lifestyle change, it’s expensive, and it’s painful.
Why does no one mention how painful it is?
It’s like childbirth and raising a newborn. People want to talk about the rainbows, unicorns and gumdrops being pregnant was, and godliness of giving birth to this perfect, angelic being who can do no wrong.
SHUT. UP.
Your body is invaded by an alien and you lose control of everything. Then that thing forces itself out in such a way that you have to be cut or torn to accommodate it, and then it becomes this leech on your body, not allowing you to sleep, not allowing you to have a life, and not allowing you any peace. And that’s if you’re lucky. Some people, and I’ve fwatched them go through this, develop hideous abscesses in their nipples and must have surgery because they chose to breastfeed, and others had permanent problems with arthritis, migraines, depression, and hormone imbalances. Pregnancy can forever mess up your gums, your hair, your health! And that angelic baby who can do no wrong, don’t even get me started on the massive amounts of exhaustive care and attention s/he requires. I have seen moms in a cloud of sleep-deprived insanity, and though they cannot recall their actions after they have collapsed in a coma-like stupor for a few hours, I know what I see of them in these states and they are not well. They say and do things that no drug on earth could elicit from them, and if they’re good people, they deny it later out of sheer atrocity over the idea that they could do such things. Sometimes it’s better to not tell them what they did. Those stories of drunken debauchery you have on your friends cannot compare with the dirt that baby-induced sleep-deprivation can cause. And that, my friends, is the painful truth that people don’t talk much about.
Just like with weight loss.
I did not lose 90 pounds gracefully. I fought it tooth and nail, whined, bitched, cussed, screamed and threw tantrums regularly.
Coaches at my gym can attest to the fact that I refuse to join any kind of supportive team/game going on because I don’t have enough faith in myself to accomplish any goals and don’t want anyone keeping close track of me. I’m a non-joiner. I barely speak to anyone at the gym. I grunt, sweat, pout, grumble, and have been known to curse out a machine or kick it. There is very little socializing going on, and if there is, it’s only with the coaches and not the others working out. Screw them. They’re on their own. It’s every woman for herself in there as far as I’m concerned, and I really do not want anyone to be my friend because my sole purpose being there is misery and ass-kicking. You want to help me? Bitch me out before I start my workout and that will help me. You wanna derail me? Pat me on the back and tell me how wonderful I look in my new thrift store clothes because I can’t afford regular store wardrobes every couple months. I hate getting sweaty. I hate getting up early. And most of all, I hate how hard it is. FUCK! I hate working out! There simply is no dignity involved!
So, now I ride a bike. This also means I eat an inordinate amount of bugs, sweat profusely in strange places, have sores in even stranger places, and lug around a bicycle everywhere I go. A bicycle, by the way, requires almost as much care as a baby, which, if I’d known that before I bought it, I’d be taking swimming lessons right now instead. I gave up the filthy gravel trails in my county and have shifted west to the paved luxuries of my neighboring bikers. Yet, no matter where I bike in this flat state I live in, it seems there are hills and moraines so large that they cause my quads to burn as if acid were churning through my legs and my lungs shrink up to raisins. Hills are my enemy.
It’s relative, too. Now the gym isn’t quite so miserable because at least I consider that we’re on flat land. The food sacrifices aren’t quite so severe either, because I didn’t have to bike uphill with a headwind to get fed. Anything that occurs on flat terrain now, no matter how unhappy it makes me, can always be made worse by being on a bike going uphill.
The bitter irony is that when you get good at one hill, you feel the need to go farther down that trail to the next section you’ve yet to explore, and lo and behold, there is a bigger hill. There is always a bigger hill. So true in every way. And I hate it.
I fight the hills. I grind my teeth, I gasp for air, I push my legs, I count the feet I have left until I reach the top, and I just about cry. Crying requires energy to be diverted from the muscles ascending a hill, so it’s simply not possible or I would do it every time. Swearing, too. If you’re nearby, you can often hear me gasp out a very desperate “Motherfucker!” as I crest, but only as I crest because talking requires expulsion of air, and I usually have none to spare, so no swearing until I’ve hit the top. And then the floodgates open up.
I do confess, I also can be heard giggling at the garter snakes, tee-hee-ing at the ground squirrels, and ooh-ing at the hawks as I ride. If you see me violently swerve, it’s most often to avoid the glorious grasshoppers that look just like dead leaves until you get up close, or to go around what looked like a stick, but is really a fuzzy little caterpillar. Sometimes I want to recite applicable Eric Carle books to them as I pass.
But I digress. This isn’t about the cutesy moments. This is about the overwhelmingly angry moments.
Last week I fell off the wagon completely. I abandoned my high-protein, low-carb diet and went on a Culver’s Concrete Mixer binge. (Chocolate ice cream with toppings of peanut butter and peanut butter cups, thank you very much!) It was an awful week. One I may never completely recover from emotionally, but one I need to fight my way out of now, so I had to break up with Culver’s and get back in the saddle, literally. I put on 5 pounds last week, and when I reported this to Eric (who has become my coach), he insisted I hadn’t eaten that many calories in one week and was simply retaining water. I disagreed and insisted I was retaining ice cream.
Two days of riding and I realized I wasn’t doing myself any favors because I was riding my route faster and shaving off more time with each run, which actually reduces the number of calories burned over time, so I had to lengthen my route. By adding another couple miles, I’m riding deeper into a wooded area of the trail that I’ve never been to before. That’s what sucks about weight loss. Just when you get a handle on things, adjust to the level of hell you’ve committed yourself to and you tolerate it okay, it stops working and you have to add more torture on top.
Today I met my arch enemy. It’s a hill. But it’s not just any hill. It’s a hill that I could not ascend.
THAT. BUGS ME.
Going up it, I was down to my very lowest gear, still barely able to turn the pedals, and at one point I had only the strength to hold the pedals from going backward. This toppled the bike from lack of movement, and I found myself quickly dismounting in order not to take a huge fall into the woods. So, I fell off my bike trying to get up this hill that completely immobilized me. It was a bitter defeat and I turned around and rode back to my car 7 miles away. I then drove to my usual restaurant, where I ordered a gigantic slice of pizza and ate only the topping (okay, I had a little crust, but not much), and I pouted the entire time. I whined. I texted Eric, who had recommended this part of the trail, and asked if he was trying to kill me. He insisted he could not recall such a treacherous hill on this part of the trail. That made me angry. Not only had I been beaten by this hill, but evidently it wasn’t even memorable to anyone else as a tough hill to climb. I stabbed at my pizza until it was a saucy mess and decided to go at the wretched hill again today.
The second time around, that hill was just as bad, but I made it a little farther up, with a lot less grace. Instead of freezing and trying not to go backward, I wobbled all over the path, steering into the teeter of the bike going too slow to stay upright, and after swerving all over and off the path, I realized that if I wasn’t leaning all the way forward onto the handlebars, the bike did a wheelie due to the extreme incline of the path. Okay, that did it! This was a bitch of a hill! If I had to lean to keep from falling backward off my bike, it was steep. I stopped and walked the rest of the way up. From the top, it didn’t look so bad. From below, it was like a wall. Yet, there were signs that you were supposed to dismount and walk your bike down the hill because of the speed you would build riding, on a path that was not only dark and wooded, but twisty and turny, so you could easily end up in a pond, or plowing down a hapless walker. (Damn pedestrians.) Clearly, this was not a hill to be taken lightly. As if to emphasize this was the fact that I was hyperventilating. I cannot recall a time I was gasping so hard for air. This hill kicked my ass!
And as I was thinking this, a very capable-looking rider began ascending the hill, growling and grimacing, huffing and puffing, barely able to move his legs at all. He made it!
As he got to the top I said, between gasps of my own, “I hate this hill!”
He shouted back, “THIS HILL SUCKS!”
I loved him in that moment. Comrade. Even though he made it all the way up, we were of like minds: we hated it!
So, I am not a happy, proud member of the lost-alotta-weight community. I fucking hate it. It hurts. It sucks. It beats the crap out of me. I yell. I swear. I fight it every step of the way. And sometimes, something terrible happens in my life and I submerge myself in vats of ice cream, only to have to fight harder to get out of that rut as well. I don’t even know if I’d recommend it, it’s that brutal. It completely sucks.
But if you have the fight in you and you’re up for the challenge, it’s the fight of your life, and it never gets boring.
He said to me, “You have to be so proud of yourself for doing that! That’s HUGE! Just getting to the point where you have the mindset to get going is HUGE. The rest, 90 pounds, that’s amazing! You have to be proud of that!”
No. I’m not. Not really. And I’ll tell you why.
Throughout the years, I’ve read all kinds of stories by people who lost a lot of weight, how it changed their lives, how they’ll never go back to what they were, and how if they can do it, you can do it too!
Gag.
Fuck that shit. Those lying ho-bags left out the biggest, baddest, meanest little factoid in the whole damn story: it’s horrible!
Where they get their little happy pills, I don’t know, because I’m bitter. I’m angry. I’m not digging any of this. It’s a monster of a lifestyle change, it’s expensive, and it’s painful.
Why does no one mention how painful it is?
It’s like childbirth and raising a newborn. People want to talk about the rainbows, unicorns and gumdrops being pregnant was, and godliness of giving birth to this perfect, angelic being who can do no wrong.
SHUT. UP.
Your body is invaded by an alien and you lose control of everything. Then that thing forces itself out in such a way that you have to be cut or torn to accommodate it, and then it becomes this leech on your body, not allowing you to sleep, not allowing you to have a life, and not allowing you any peace. And that’s if you’re lucky. Some people, and I’ve fwatched them go through this, develop hideous abscesses in their nipples and must have surgery because they chose to breastfeed, and others had permanent problems with arthritis, migraines, depression, and hormone imbalances. Pregnancy can forever mess up your gums, your hair, your health! And that angelic baby who can do no wrong, don’t even get me started on the massive amounts of exhaustive care and attention s/he requires. I have seen moms in a cloud of sleep-deprived insanity, and though they cannot recall their actions after they have collapsed in a coma-like stupor for a few hours, I know what I see of them in these states and they are not well. They say and do things that no drug on earth could elicit from them, and if they’re good people, they deny it later out of sheer atrocity over the idea that they could do such things. Sometimes it’s better to not tell them what they did. Those stories of drunken debauchery you have on your friends cannot compare with the dirt that baby-induced sleep-deprivation can cause. And that, my friends, is the painful truth that people don’t talk much about.
Just like with weight loss.
I did not lose 90 pounds gracefully. I fought it tooth and nail, whined, bitched, cussed, screamed and threw tantrums regularly.
Coaches at my gym can attest to the fact that I refuse to join any kind of supportive team/game going on because I don’t have enough faith in myself to accomplish any goals and don’t want anyone keeping close track of me. I’m a non-joiner. I barely speak to anyone at the gym. I grunt, sweat, pout, grumble, and have been known to curse out a machine or kick it. There is very little socializing going on, and if there is, it’s only with the coaches and not the others working out. Screw them. They’re on their own. It’s every woman for herself in there as far as I’m concerned, and I really do not want anyone to be my friend because my sole purpose being there is misery and ass-kicking. You want to help me? Bitch me out before I start my workout and that will help me. You wanna derail me? Pat me on the back and tell me how wonderful I look in my new thrift store clothes because I can’t afford regular store wardrobes every couple months. I hate getting sweaty. I hate getting up early. And most of all, I hate how hard it is. FUCK! I hate working out! There simply is no dignity involved!
So, now I ride a bike. This also means I eat an inordinate amount of bugs, sweat profusely in strange places, have sores in even stranger places, and lug around a bicycle everywhere I go. A bicycle, by the way, requires almost as much care as a baby, which, if I’d known that before I bought it, I’d be taking swimming lessons right now instead. I gave up the filthy gravel trails in my county and have shifted west to the paved luxuries of my neighboring bikers. Yet, no matter where I bike in this flat state I live in, it seems there are hills and moraines so large that they cause my quads to burn as if acid were churning through my legs and my lungs shrink up to raisins. Hills are my enemy.
It’s relative, too. Now the gym isn’t quite so miserable because at least I consider that we’re on flat land. The food sacrifices aren’t quite so severe either, because I didn’t have to bike uphill with a headwind to get fed. Anything that occurs on flat terrain now, no matter how unhappy it makes me, can always be made worse by being on a bike going uphill.
The bitter irony is that when you get good at one hill, you feel the need to go farther down that trail to the next section you’ve yet to explore, and lo and behold, there is a bigger hill. There is always a bigger hill. So true in every way. And I hate it.
I fight the hills. I grind my teeth, I gasp for air, I push my legs, I count the feet I have left until I reach the top, and I just about cry. Crying requires energy to be diverted from the muscles ascending a hill, so it’s simply not possible or I would do it every time. Swearing, too. If you’re nearby, you can often hear me gasp out a very desperate “Motherfucker!” as I crest, but only as I crest because talking requires expulsion of air, and I usually have none to spare, so no swearing until I’ve hit the top. And then the floodgates open up.
I do confess, I also can be heard giggling at the garter snakes, tee-hee-ing at the ground squirrels, and ooh-ing at the hawks as I ride. If you see me violently swerve, it’s most often to avoid the glorious grasshoppers that look just like dead leaves until you get up close, or to go around what looked like a stick, but is really a fuzzy little caterpillar. Sometimes I want to recite applicable Eric Carle books to them as I pass.
But I digress. This isn’t about the cutesy moments. This is about the overwhelmingly angry moments.
Last week I fell off the wagon completely. I abandoned my high-protein, low-carb diet and went on a Culver’s Concrete Mixer binge. (Chocolate ice cream with toppings of peanut butter and peanut butter cups, thank you very much!) It was an awful week. One I may never completely recover from emotionally, but one I need to fight my way out of now, so I had to break up with Culver’s and get back in the saddle, literally. I put on 5 pounds last week, and when I reported this to Eric (who has become my coach), he insisted I hadn’t eaten that many calories in one week and was simply retaining water. I disagreed and insisted I was retaining ice cream.
Two days of riding and I realized I wasn’t doing myself any favors because I was riding my route faster and shaving off more time with each run, which actually reduces the number of calories burned over time, so I had to lengthen my route. By adding another couple miles, I’m riding deeper into a wooded area of the trail that I’ve never been to before. That’s what sucks about weight loss. Just when you get a handle on things, adjust to the level of hell you’ve committed yourself to and you tolerate it okay, it stops working and you have to add more torture on top.
Today I met my arch enemy. It’s a hill. But it’s not just any hill. It’s a hill that I could not ascend.
THAT. BUGS ME.
Going up it, I was down to my very lowest gear, still barely able to turn the pedals, and at one point I had only the strength to hold the pedals from going backward. This toppled the bike from lack of movement, and I found myself quickly dismounting in order not to take a huge fall into the woods. So, I fell off my bike trying to get up this hill that completely immobilized me. It was a bitter defeat and I turned around and rode back to my car 7 miles away. I then drove to my usual restaurant, where I ordered a gigantic slice of pizza and ate only the topping (okay, I had a little crust, but not much), and I pouted the entire time. I whined. I texted Eric, who had recommended this part of the trail, and asked if he was trying to kill me. He insisted he could not recall such a treacherous hill on this part of the trail. That made me angry. Not only had I been beaten by this hill, but evidently it wasn’t even memorable to anyone else as a tough hill to climb. I stabbed at my pizza until it was a saucy mess and decided to go at the wretched hill again today.
The second time around, that hill was just as bad, but I made it a little farther up, with a lot less grace. Instead of freezing and trying not to go backward, I wobbled all over the path, steering into the teeter of the bike going too slow to stay upright, and after swerving all over and off the path, I realized that if I wasn’t leaning all the way forward onto the handlebars, the bike did a wheelie due to the extreme incline of the path. Okay, that did it! This was a bitch of a hill! If I had to lean to keep from falling backward off my bike, it was steep. I stopped and walked the rest of the way up. From the top, it didn’t look so bad. From below, it was like a wall. Yet, there were signs that you were supposed to dismount and walk your bike down the hill because of the speed you would build riding, on a path that was not only dark and wooded, but twisty and turny, so you could easily end up in a pond, or plowing down a hapless walker. (Damn pedestrians.) Clearly, this was not a hill to be taken lightly. As if to emphasize this was the fact that I was hyperventilating. I cannot recall a time I was gasping so hard for air. This hill kicked my ass!
And as I was thinking this, a very capable-looking rider began ascending the hill, growling and grimacing, huffing and puffing, barely able to move his legs at all. He made it!
As he got to the top I said, between gasps of my own, “I hate this hill!”
He shouted back, “THIS HILL SUCKS!”
I loved him in that moment. Comrade. Even though he made it all the way up, we were of like minds: we hated it!
So, I am not a happy, proud member of the lost-alotta-weight community. I fucking hate it. It hurts. It sucks. It beats the crap out of me. I yell. I swear. I fight it every step of the way. And sometimes, something terrible happens in my life and I submerge myself in vats of ice cream, only to have to fight harder to get out of that rut as well. I don’t even know if I’d recommend it, it’s that brutal. It completely sucks.
But if you have the fight in you and you’re up for the challenge, it’s the fight of your life, and it never gets boring.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Larger Than Life
I had a friend named Jeff.
He came to work at my library about 8 years ago, but we didn’t really start talking much until the end of 2003, when a rogue board member decided to bully the other trustees into making a new rule restricting R-rated movies to patrons who were 17 or older. During a staff meeting where we were informed of the board’s decision to ignore our objections, I took a stand and said that I was both a patron of our library and a staff member, and as a patron I would do what I had to do to fight it, even if it put my job in jeopardy. Little did I know, I was sitting next to someone who would turn out to be the greatest champion of free speech I ever met. The bond was instant.
Our friendship blossomed when we discovered how many things we had in common: atheism, book-love, liberalism, and many more. When my father was diagnosed with cancer in early 2004, Jeff was a quintessential member of the small support group I leaned on regularly. I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten through that without him. The day my father died, I drove home from the hospital in the very early hours of the morning, showered, redressed, and drove over to the library, where I stood outside the back door until he arrived at 8:45. When I told him what happened, he hugged me for a long time and then asked me if I’d driven all the way over at this fragile time just to stand around waiting to see him. Of course I had, but suddenly I was embarrassed about how much I relied on him to make me feel better. At a time when everyone was saying the stupidest things to me about my dad’s death, when strangers were trying to foist upon me their religious beliefs without regard to my own beliefs, and when I was desperate for some peace, I knew only Jeff would understand. I told him no, I was restless and had gone to the library to arrange for time off. He hugged me harder. He didn’t want to think of me standing alone outside the library in this state waiting for him to arrive. He never knew I did just that.
I work in a library like many others, full of colorful characters. Easily, the most colorful character was Jeff. I could live to be 100 and never meet anyone with more passion and love of life than he had. He spoke many languages, including Spanish, Portugese and Chinese, and adored other cultures and people. He championed many causes, celebrated diversity, and became an ordained minister so that he could marry people. The only times I ever saw him angry were when there were occasions when he was witness to discrimination, or when someone tried to say that food in Chicago was better than anything in Iowa. The man loved Iowa. Born, raised, and educated there, he had a marrow-deep aversion to anything compared to Iowa. His intellect was impressive, even in a library environment, and though he didn’t often work the reference desk, if ever there was an obscure fragment of information I needed (for myself or someone else), he was my go-to person. He was married to a woman I never got to know, though I wish I had, and never had children, though I think his worship of his cats was probably greater than any proud parent I’ve ever encountered. Jeff had a heart so big it was overwhelming. I often didn’t know what to do with all the compliments he bestowed upon me, but if you knew him, you’d know he meant every one. If he cared about you, it was 200%, never less. And the only time you ever saw him less than ecstatic to see you was when he was very sick, and then he was only somewhat muted, but always enthusiastic. Jeff made everyone feel good.
As the head of our Technical Services Department, he was in a role he seemed born to play: king of cataloging. Like many catalogers, his focus on details was exquisite, and if you dared to ask a question, he would tell you the answer down to the DNA that the answer was made of. He was precise. He told me many times that his mentor advised him that if someone asks him what time it is, not to tell them how to build a watch. While Jeff found this amusing and self-defining, I think we all (including Jeff) knew that we were going to get the watch instructions anyway. But it was okay. Because it was Jeff. And his heart was always in the right place.
Jeff was not just lovable, but he was loved tremendously by so many people, and he loved back tremendously. There was never a doubt in my mind that he was my friend and he loved me. I hope he knew the feeling was mutual. A few years ago he had a car accident, and during the chest X-ray the technician told him he had the largest ribcage he’d ever seen. This was merely confirmation that his heart was so big, only the largest ribs could contain it.
Walking into a room where Jeff was, if you said hello, how are you, he would reply, without fail, “Great, now that you’re here!” If I didn’t say hello first, he would announce my presence to anyone nearby by shouting, “LOOK! It’s the lovely and talented Nikki! Isn’t that great? Nikki is here!” Sometimes he simply would say, “Hello, beautiful,” and it was never sleazy -- it was true to him. I wish I could see myself through his eyes. He said these things to all the women on staff, but because he said them all with sincerity and flamboyance, no one ever felt it was anything other than complimentary. We ate it up, squirmed under the spotlight, and ultimately felt good.
Jeff loved food, passionately. He loved a good debate, passionately. He loved the people in his life, passionately. His laugh could be heard at a distance, and no matter the situation, he could always find a way to make it funny. Though he hated meetings at work, passionately, none were without his hilarious participation to resurrect them with life. There are very few photos of him at our library where he wasn’t making a silly face. Tonight Ann shared a story of when he worked with her mother in a very strict and unfriendly environment. If things got too quiet and serious, he’d fly a paper airplane stocked with glitter over the cubicles, crop-dusting his coworkers with sparkles. Jeff made everything better.
Over the weekend, Jeff suffered a series of strokes and died.
The enormity of this statement is still unacceptable.
If I hadn’t seen him in the hospital bed myself, I might not believe it at all. There was simply too much life in him to lose it all. He was too young. He was too strong. He was, and is still, a presence that made the world a better place. It simply does not make any sense at all.
Losing him is devastating. Knowing him was a gift.
I had a friend named Jeff. And I was honored that he considered me a friend, too.
He came to work at my library about 8 years ago, but we didn’t really start talking much until the end of 2003, when a rogue board member decided to bully the other trustees into making a new rule restricting R-rated movies to patrons who were 17 or older. During a staff meeting where we were informed of the board’s decision to ignore our objections, I took a stand and said that I was both a patron of our library and a staff member, and as a patron I would do what I had to do to fight it, even if it put my job in jeopardy. Little did I know, I was sitting next to someone who would turn out to be the greatest champion of free speech I ever met. The bond was instant.
Our friendship blossomed when we discovered how many things we had in common: atheism, book-love, liberalism, and many more. When my father was diagnosed with cancer in early 2004, Jeff was a quintessential member of the small support group I leaned on regularly. I’m sure I couldn’t have gotten through that without him. The day my father died, I drove home from the hospital in the very early hours of the morning, showered, redressed, and drove over to the library, where I stood outside the back door until he arrived at 8:45. When I told him what happened, he hugged me for a long time and then asked me if I’d driven all the way over at this fragile time just to stand around waiting to see him. Of course I had, but suddenly I was embarrassed about how much I relied on him to make me feel better. At a time when everyone was saying the stupidest things to me about my dad’s death, when strangers were trying to foist upon me their religious beliefs without regard to my own beliefs, and when I was desperate for some peace, I knew only Jeff would understand. I told him no, I was restless and had gone to the library to arrange for time off. He hugged me harder. He didn’t want to think of me standing alone outside the library in this state waiting for him to arrive. He never knew I did just that.
I work in a library like many others, full of colorful characters. Easily, the most colorful character was Jeff. I could live to be 100 and never meet anyone with more passion and love of life than he had. He spoke many languages, including Spanish, Portugese and Chinese, and adored other cultures and people. He championed many causes, celebrated diversity, and became an ordained minister so that he could marry people. The only times I ever saw him angry were when there were occasions when he was witness to discrimination, or when someone tried to say that food in Chicago was better than anything in Iowa. The man loved Iowa. Born, raised, and educated there, he had a marrow-deep aversion to anything compared to Iowa. His intellect was impressive, even in a library environment, and though he didn’t often work the reference desk, if ever there was an obscure fragment of information I needed (for myself or someone else), he was my go-to person. He was married to a woman I never got to know, though I wish I had, and never had children, though I think his worship of his cats was probably greater than any proud parent I’ve ever encountered. Jeff had a heart so big it was overwhelming. I often didn’t know what to do with all the compliments he bestowed upon me, but if you knew him, you’d know he meant every one. If he cared about you, it was 200%, never less. And the only time you ever saw him less than ecstatic to see you was when he was very sick, and then he was only somewhat muted, but always enthusiastic. Jeff made everyone feel good.
As the head of our Technical Services Department, he was in a role he seemed born to play: king of cataloging. Like many catalogers, his focus on details was exquisite, and if you dared to ask a question, he would tell you the answer down to the DNA that the answer was made of. He was precise. He told me many times that his mentor advised him that if someone asks him what time it is, not to tell them how to build a watch. While Jeff found this amusing and self-defining, I think we all (including Jeff) knew that we were going to get the watch instructions anyway. But it was okay. Because it was Jeff. And his heart was always in the right place.
Jeff was not just lovable, but he was loved tremendously by so many people, and he loved back tremendously. There was never a doubt in my mind that he was my friend and he loved me. I hope he knew the feeling was mutual. A few years ago he had a car accident, and during the chest X-ray the technician told him he had the largest ribcage he’d ever seen. This was merely confirmation that his heart was so big, only the largest ribs could contain it.
Walking into a room where Jeff was, if you said hello, how are you, he would reply, without fail, “Great, now that you’re here!” If I didn’t say hello first, he would announce my presence to anyone nearby by shouting, “LOOK! It’s the lovely and talented Nikki! Isn’t that great? Nikki is here!” Sometimes he simply would say, “Hello, beautiful,” and it was never sleazy -- it was true to him. I wish I could see myself through his eyes. He said these things to all the women on staff, but because he said them all with sincerity and flamboyance, no one ever felt it was anything other than complimentary. We ate it up, squirmed under the spotlight, and ultimately felt good.
Jeff loved food, passionately. He loved a good debate, passionately. He loved the people in his life, passionately. His laugh could be heard at a distance, and no matter the situation, he could always find a way to make it funny. Though he hated meetings at work, passionately, none were without his hilarious participation to resurrect them with life. There are very few photos of him at our library where he wasn’t making a silly face. Tonight Ann shared a story of when he worked with her mother in a very strict and unfriendly environment. If things got too quiet and serious, he’d fly a paper airplane stocked with glitter over the cubicles, crop-dusting his coworkers with sparkles. Jeff made everything better.
Over the weekend, Jeff suffered a series of strokes and died.
The enormity of this statement is still unacceptable.
If I hadn’t seen him in the hospital bed myself, I might not believe it at all. There was simply too much life in him to lose it all. He was too young. He was too strong. He was, and is still, a presence that made the world a better place. It simply does not make any sense at all.
Losing him is devastating. Knowing him was a gift.
I had a friend named Jeff. And I was honored that he considered me a friend, too.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Because It's Worthy
Far be it from me to promote anything on FB and anything to do with Oprah, but here I am because dammit, it needs to be done.
Oprah, Libraries Need You! was set up by Marilyn Johnson, beloved author and friend of mine, with the hopes that Oprah will do something to draw attention to the sad state of public libraries and the potential losses they will continue to suffer if something isn't done. Why Oprah? Well, if you work in a public library, you know how much power this woman has, not just with the public and Oprah's Book Club, but the media and political world. She spends so much time promoting books, education, literacy, etc., but she's been unusually silent about the problems libraries are facing today. One can only wonder why. Thus, library champion Marilyn Johnson started a FB page hoping to attract a crowd and the attention of those who might help.
If you're a FB person and you're a library-lover, please consider joining as well.
Oprah, Libraries Need You! was set up by Marilyn Johnson, beloved author and friend of mine, with the hopes that Oprah will do something to draw attention to the sad state of public libraries and the potential losses they will continue to suffer if something isn't done. Why Oprah? Well, if you work in a public library, you know how much power this woman has, not just with the public and Oprah's Book Club, but the media and political world. She spends so much time promoting books, education, literacy, etc., but she's been unusually silent about the problems libraries are facing today. One can only wonder why. Thus, library champion Marilyn Johnson started a FB page hoping to attract a crowd and the attention of those who might help.
If you're a FB person and you're a library-lover, please consider joining as well.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Here's a New One
Girl comes up to the desk and says, "Can you help me at the computer? I need to get into my gmail account and print something."
I say sure and ask what she's struggling with.
She answers, "I know how to get there on my phone. I use the internet on the cell phone all the time, email, all that stuff, but I don't know how to use the computer to get to gmail."
She had no idea how to use the address bar and found the keyboard confusing.
Wow. Are computers obsolete already? Are handhelds the only way young people compute now? Or was she just *special*?
I say sure and ask what she's struggling with.
She answers, "I know how to get there on my phone. I use the internet on the cell phone all the time, email, all that stuff, but I don't know how to use the computer to get to gmail."
She had no idea how to use the address bar and found the keyboard confusing.
Wow. Are computers obsolete already? Are handhelds the only way young people compute now? Or was she just *special*?
Saturday, September 18, 2010
I'm Back!
I've published a post on my Travel Blog about the trip if you're interested.
Otherwise, it should be back to life as usual.
While I was gone, Marina sent me an email saying that she just had to tell someone what she saw because she was utterly grossed out. The Creepy Craigslist Guy was apparently wearing at T-shirt that read, "It's not going to lick itself." Today she elaborated that it made her throw up a little bit. People as creepy as him should not be allowed to wear suggestive clothes like that. It should be a law.
Man, I do not miss these encounters when I'm on vacation. At all.
Otherwise, it should be back to life as usual.
While I was gone, Marina sent me an email saying that she just had to tell someone what she saw because she was utterly grossed out. The Creepy Craigslist Guy was apparently wearing at T-shirt that read, "It's not going to lick itself." Today she elaborated that it made her throw up a little bit. People as creepy as him should not be allowed to wear suggestive clothes like that. It should be a law.
Man, I do not miss these encounters when I'm on vacation. At all.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Pieces-Parts
Two weeks ago I got the “okay” from my internist to start a low-carb, high-protein diet when my own low-cal, low-fat diet had stalled for 6 months. I’d maxed out at 81 pounds lost, which sounds like I should be done, but I’m not goddammit. She ran a battery of tests to make sure it was simply a plateau and not something more serious causing stagnation in the weight loss (we also had a short argument about how much more I had to lose, me insisting on a lot more and her insisting on not that much), and suggested I try South Beach instead of Atkin’s simply because it was much easier to maintain. Well, those were the magic words, but not the ones she imagined. Knowing that Atkins was more hardcore and harder to maintain, that’s the one I chose. Also, instead of limiting myself to 20g of carbs per day, I deprived myself extra and hovered around 5g. On top of that, I switched out a meal for protein shakes, too.
People, when you ride your bike 10 – 20 miles per day and work out at the gym, and restrict your calories to 1,000 - 1,500 per day while eating only protein, something unbelievable happens to your muscles. They grow. Like fast. Like really fast. But when you’re burning more than you’re taking in, that seems to go straight to bulking up the muscles that propel you and you have little to live on, so you get tired. Like really tired. And those big new muscles start to ache like you’re coming down with the flu. And the combination of losing too much water and not consuming enough calories turn you into a zombie with dry skin, dry eyes, and a pasty mouth. Not fun. So, I now eat more carbs. More of everything, actually.
Marina, who is trying an all-carb diet, has been horrified with my lack of carbs and the volume of eggs I’m forced to eat. It doesn’t help that I have been prone to burst into tears when I see someone eat a banana in my proximity, and another coworker brought in bagels yesterday, which caused me to wail and moan in the agony of my depravation. I shut myself up by eating some cheese curds and organic pepperoni. (Didn’t know such a creature existed, did you!?)
Marina’s biggest beef (ahem) with my no-carb existence is that I cannot have bread. In her world, no bread would simply mean life wasn’t worth living.
She said with consternation, “Bread and I are very best friends. And I don’t give up on my friends like that!”
And so we forge on with our opposite diets, and she sympathetically listens to me bemoan how much I’d love to have a really hot guy roll around in some liquid chocolate so I could sprinkle him with raisins and Rice Krispies and then lick him clean. Or the detailed descriptions of my favorite cake: chocolate with buttercream and strawberry filling. Or just the random tantrum where I fling myself upon my desk dramatically and whine, “Bananas…” Her diet doesn’t cause her so much pain, and this, I fear, is what my doctor was warning me about.
However, in addition to developing these extraordinary muscles in places I just used to have a firm collection of subcutaneous fat, I’m dropping pounds. Whew. It’s always good when you make a huge sacrifice and it pays off rather than it just costs.
* * *
I had a patron ask me today if we have reading glasses we lend out.
* * *
Hissy fits are the absolute worst when they come from middle-aged men. I don’t know why. I’ll take a hissy fit from anyone else, but a whining middle-aged man who can’t figure out some of life’s simplest tasks will cause my patience to evaporate and my self-control to shudder under the pressure of my frustration.
He was computer literate, seemingly. He managed to get himself a reservation and log into the computer without any instruction from me, though he’d never done it before. But about 10 minutes later he came up to me having his hissy fit and I very nearly chucked a box of Kleenex at him.
“I can’t get online! It opens up on your website, and when I type an address in the address bar, there’s no Go button to click and I can’t go anywhere!”
These words were spoken drawn out, in whines, and he stomped his foot for emphasis when he uttered “anywhere”. If his lip had quivered, I would’ve just decked him.
I suggested he hit Enter after typing the address.
“Enter?! I’m supposed to hit Enter?!”
I assured him that this would direct his browser to change pages if everything was entered in the proper location.
“Why did you take the Go button off? I mean, people use the Go button and when you take it away, how are we supposed to get to other websites?”
Enter. Really, who lifts up their hand and uses the mouse to click the Go button? Just one guy: Mr. Hissy Fit.
He stormed off, completely infuriated that he would now have to hit Enter instead of clicking Go.
Sorry I ruined your day, bub. Try being me for a shift.
* * *
There’s a woman who frequents the library with her husband, and my nearest guestimation is that she was hit by a train. Nothing is right on her body – nothing. She looks like a Picasso painting. Also, it’s impossible to understand what she says through the grunting, which is just like Karl Childers in Sling Blade. Where she gets brand-new-looking 70s rock band T-shirts, I’ll never know. She is a mystery. But if she asks for some biscuits, I may lose it. Mmmmm-hm
* * *
A man asked me where the Ann-himes are.
My look must have said it all because he tried again.
Ann-hymees. Ann-hymms. Ann-himates. Those movies!
Anime movies.
* * *
People who bring in handfuls of pencils to borrow our sharpener periodically creep me out. How can you be so devoted to wooden pencils but against purchasing your own little, plastic, hand-held sharpener?
* * *
Boyfriend Extraordinaire is flying in tonight and staying for 2½ weeks so I’m not sure how much I’ll be around to post things. Not that I’ve been posting all that much anyway. Perhaps another camping adventure might inspire some written observations of the foibles of amateurs venturing out in nature or the intersecting of irritating people with the perfectly reasonable pair we are. We shall see.
People, when you ride your bike 10 – 20 miles per day and work out at the gym, and restrict your calories to 1,000 - 1,500 per day while eating only protein, something unbelievable happens to your muscles. They grow. Like fast. Like really fast. But when you’re burning more than you’re taking in, that seems to go straight to bulking up the muscles that propel you and you have little to live on, so you get tired. Like really tired. And those big new muscles start to ache like you’re coming down with the flu. And the combination of losing too much water and not consuming enough calories turn you into a zombie with dry skin, dry eyes, and a pasty mouth. Not fun. So, I now eat more carbs. More of everything, actually.
Marina, who is trying an all-carb diet, has been horrified with my lack of carbs and the volume of eggs I’m forced to eat. It doesn’t help that I have been prone to burst into tears when I see someone eat a banana in my proximity, and another coworker brought in bagels yesterday, which caused me to wail and moan in the agony of my depravation. I shut myself up by eating some cheese curds and organic pepperoni. (Didn’t know such a creature existed, did you!?)
Marina’s biggest beef (ahem) with my no-carb existence is that I cannot have bread. In her world, no bread would simply mean life wasn’t worth living.
She said with consternation, “Bread and I are very best friends. And I don’t give up on my friends like that!”
And so we forge on with our opposite diets, and she sympathetically listens to me bemoan how much I’d love to have a really hot guy roll around in some liquid chocolate so I could sprinkle him with raisins and Rice Krispies and then lick him clean. Or the detailed descriptions of my favorite cake: chocolate with buttercream and strawberry filling. Or just the random tantrum where I fling myself upon my desk dramatically and whine, “Bananas…” Her diet doesn’t cause her so much pain, and this, I fear, is what my doctor was warning me about.
However, in addition to developing these extraordinary muscles in places I just used to have a firm collection of subcutaneous fat, I’m dropping pounds. Whew. It’s always good when you make a huge sacrifice and it pays off rather than it just costs.
* * *
I had a patron ask me today if we have reading glasses we lend out.
* * *
Hissy fits are the absolute worst when they come from middle-aged men. I don’t know why. I’ll take a hissy fit from anyone else, but a whining middle-aged man who can’t figure out some of life’s simplest tasks will cause my patience to evaporate and my self-control to shudder under the pressure of my frustration.
He was computer literate, seemingly. He managed to get himself a reservation and log into the computer without any instruction from me, though he’d never done it before. But about 10 minutes later he came up to me having his hissy fit and I very nearly chucked a box of Kleenex at him.
“I can’t get online! It opens up on your website, and when I type an address in the address bar, there’s no Go button to click and I can’t go anywhere!”
These words were spoken drawn out, in whines, and he stomped his foot for emphasis when he uttered “anywhere”. If his lip had quivered, I would’ve just decked him.
I suggested he hit Enter after typing the address.
“Enter?! I’m supposed to hit Enter?!”
I assured him that this would direct his browser to change pages if everything was entered in the proper location.
“Why did you take the Go button off? I mean, people use the Go button and when you take it away, how are we supposed to get to other websites?”
Enter. Really, who lifts up their hand and uses the mouse to click the Go button? Just one guy: Mr. Hissy Fit.
He stormed off, completely infuriated that he would now have to hit Enter instead of clicking Go.
Sorry I ruined your day, bub. Try being me for a shift.
* * *
There’s a woman who frequents the library with her husband, and my nearest guestimation is that she was hit by a train. Nothing is right on her body – nothing. She looks like a Picasso painting. Also, it’s impossible to understand what she says through the grunting, which is just like Karl Childers in Sling Blade. Where she gets brand-new-looking 70s rock band T-shirts, I’ll never know. She is a mystery. But if she asks for some biscuits, I may lose it. Mmmmm-hm
* * *
A man asked me where the Ann-himes are.
My look must have said it all because he tried again.
Ann-hymees. Ann-hymms. Ann-himates. Those movies!
Anime movies.
* * *
People who bring in handfuls of pencils to borrow our sharpener periodically creep me out. How can you be so devoted to wooden pencils but against purchasing your own little, plastic, hand-held sharpener?
* * *
Boyfriend Extraordinaire is flying in tonight and staying for 2½ weeks so I’m not sure how much I’ll be around to post things. Not that I’ve been posting all that much anyway. Perhaps another camping adventure might inspire some written observations of the foibles of amateurs venturing out in nature or the intersecting of irritating people with the perfectly reasonable pair we are. We shall see.
Friday, August 20, 2010
A Day In the Life
A teenage girl walked up to the desk and we had the following conversation:
Girl: Do you have scary movies?
Me: Are you looking for the series of movies called Scary Movie, or are you looking just for scary movies in general?
Girl: Scary movies.
Me: Um… the series, Scary Movie 1, 2, 3 and 4?
Girl: Uh… scary movies.
Me: Soooooo, just movies that are scary.
Girl: You know? Scary movies?
NO! I DON’T KNOW! PLEASE TELL ME!
Later, a handsome black guy walked up, and he was walking with a limp and a cane, but all I could see were those gorgeous braids in his hair – I get severe braid envy – and I tossed him a really big smile.
Guy: Hey there. I’m looking for books on magic.
Me: Oh, well, okay, so do you mean books on how to do magic tricks, or books on the card game Magic: the Gathering, or just novels with magic as a theme, like wizards and stuff like that?
Guy: Well, like, magic. Just books on magic.
Me *blink, blink*: Yes [deep breath], but what kind of magic?
Guy: Um, the regular kind of magic.
Not irregular magic. Thanks for that clarification.
Me: Okay, let’s narrow this down. You’re not looking for stuff on the card game Magic, right?
Guy: I don’t think so.
Me: Are these books for you or someone else?
Guy: For me.
Me: Okay, so you don’t play the game Magic, right? We can get rid of those from the equation, correct?
Guy: I guess so.
Me: Well, that leaves us with books that teach you how to do magic tricks. Is that what you want? Or do you want fantasy books about magic and dragons and things like that?
Guy: Just, whatever you have on magic.
Me: Okay. I can show you samples of both. But what are you hoping to get out of these books? Do you want to learn magic?
Guy: I don’t know.
THEN NEITHER DO I!
I walked him over to the learning magic tricks section and said that if this was not what he was looking for, then to come back and see me and we’d hit the novels. He browsed for about 5 minutes and then left empty-handed, didn’t come back for more help or even make eye contact on his way straight out the door. Now really, I can only take the blame for so much. Clearly if you don’t know how to communicate what you’re looking for, my ability to mind-read a blank canvas is almost nonexistent.
As if it were a full moon, more irritations continued.
**Update**
Done deal.
Girl: Do you have scary movies?
Me: Are you looking for the series of movies called Scary Movie, or are you looking just for scary movies in general?
Girl: Scary movies.
Me: Um… the series, Scary Movie 1, 2, 3 and 4?
Girl: Uh… scary movies.
Me: Soooooo, just movies that are scary.
Girl: You know? Scary movies?
NO! I DON’T KNOW! PLEASE TELL ME!
Later, a handsome black guy walked up, and he was walking with a limp and a cane, but all I could see were those gorgeous braids in his hair – I get severe braid envy – and I tossed him a really big smile.
Guy: Hey there. I’m looking for books on magic.
Me: Oh, well, okay, so do you mean books on how to do magic tricks, or books on the card game Magic: the Gathering, or just novels with magic as a theme, like wizards and stuff like that?
Guy: Well, like, magic. Just books on magic.
Me *blink, blink*: Yes [deep breath], but what kind of magic?
Guy: Um, the regular kind of magic.
Not irregular magic. Thanks for that clarification.
Me: Okay, let’s narrow this down. You’re not looking for stuff on the card game Magic, right?
Guy: I don’t think so.
Me: Are these books for you or someone else?
Guy: For me.
Me: Okay, so you don’t play the game Magic, right? We can get rid of those from the equation, correct?
Guy: I guess so.
Me: Well, that leaves us with books that teach you how to do magic tricks. Is that what you want? Or do you want fantasy books about magic and dragons and things like that?
Guy: Just, whatever you have on magic.
Me: Okay. I can show you samples of both. But what are you hoping to get out of these books? Do you want to learn magic?
Guy: I don’t know.
THEN NEITHER DO I!
I walked him over to the learning magic tricks section and said that if this was not what he was looking for, then to come back and see me and we’d hit the novels. He browsed for about 5 minutes and then left empty-handed, didn’t come back for more help or even make eye contact on his way straight out the door. Now really, I can only take the blame for so much. Clearly if you don’t know how to communicate what you’re looking for, my ability to mind-read a blank canvas is almost nonexistent.
As if it were a full moon, more irritations continued.
We have the usual creepy crowd of pathetic, older men who peruse singles ads online, as well as porn sites, looking to hook up. Some are guys who won’t ever get their foot in the door, and others might hide some of their creepiness in the first couple of exchanges before it becomes a full-on, heebie-jeebies fest for the receiver. One of these guys I’ve caught on those barely-legal porn sites, advertising teenage girls for your sick pleasure, so I keep my eye on him. The second I see something illegal, he’s going down.
My first encounter with him was when he ran up to my desk, completely frantic, on the verge of tears, voice cracking and wild panting, wanting me to help him find someone he’d had three email exchanges with on Craigslist, and now his emails weren’t going through to her inbox. He wanted me to figure out a way to find her, a phone number, an address, an alternate email address, something he could use to continue communicating with her because suddenly he can’t get any email through to her account. Things had been going so well, too. He needed to know if she was okay and he had to find a way to talk to her still. All the while, he was sniffling and fighting back complete loss of emotional control.
My absolute favorite commercial out right now is this one.
And I had, at that moment, a fantasy about calling him a jackwagon and chucking a box of Kleenex at him. Seriously. Get your ass back from mamby-pamby-land and get a clue, crybaby.
Ugh. Teen porn and online stalking: he’s a winner.
Anyway, I was working in the office while Marina was at the reference desk and she sent me an IM.
Marina: Creepy Guy just asked me for a camera.
I laughed really, really hard and turned to my boss and shared this gem.
Boss: Did he want a web camera? Ewwww.
Me (typing to Marina): Web cam or digital camera?
Marina: Digital camera I think, but I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know.
Me (to Marina): Did he say why? Did he want to use it here or take it home?
Marina: He started to tell me why he wanted it and then stopped himself in the middle and quit explaining.
I roared with laughter and shared this bit with my boss as well.
Me (to boss): So, when are those volunteers coming back? The ones who clean the keyboards and stuff?
Boss: Not soon enough!
Me (to Marina): Whose turn is it to clean the computer stations?
Marina: The good news is he’s been here ALL DAY but I just keep giving him extensions on the computer he’s at, so he’s only touched one computer the whole time he’s been here.
Me (to Marina): Uh… good? Hey, [Coworker] comes back from vacation tonight. We could suggest she wipe down the computers when she’s looking for busywork.
Marina: That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Me (to Marina): Great minds think alike.
I later did not suggest to our beloved coworker that she wipe-down computers. I like her too much.
And to prove her worth, she came up with the most brilliant idea I’ve yet heard.
There’s been a world of controversy swirling around our library and our cherished security guard, Arms, has received some bad PR by a group of idiots who dubbed him a thug. It’s hysterical to me, but then again I don’t have to deal with the fallout, so I can afford to laugh.
Anyway, I was telling our recently-returned-from-vacation coworker about the mess, and she too was experiencing gut-busting laughter about it all, but she got me thinking that we needed to show our appreciation to Arms for all that he does, to stand by him. All week I’ve been saying we love our thug, and our thug can take your thug any day of the week. My boss even added, “Bring it on. It’ll make his day.”
Coworker: Someone said we were going to get him a t-shirt?
Me: Yeah, it should say something like “Have you hugged your thug today?” and have handprints on the back. Can you imagine how much Arms would freak out if we hugged him? Particularly you and me?!
We both laughed hard about that one because we pick on him a lot.
Coworker: “Thugs need hugs too!”
Me: “Thug love!”
Coworker: OH GOD, we should do a DISPLAY!
My tiny little brain began turning and a smile slowly spread across my face until I erupted with a scream of enthusiasm.
Me: YEAH!!!! I have so many thug-titled books in the street lit collection! We could subtly throw them all on a display and call it Thug Lovin’ or something like that, our homage to Arms!
Coworker: Do you think the director would get mad?
Me: Oh c’mon! I put his big, life-sized head in the middle of a display and he looked at it for a while and didn’t even realize it was his picture! He’ll never notice!
Coworker: Do you think we’ll get some heat? Will we get in trouble?
Me: Why would we?! It’s a mini street lit display, right? It’s not like we’ll put his picture on it. OR SHOULD WE? Would that be going too far?
Coworker: Oh, we should! We should put his big head right in the middle of the Thug Lovin’ part!
Me: Most people would have no idea what it was about. It would be pretty much an inside joke. Do you think we could get away with that?
Coworker: I don’t know.
Me: Maybe I’ll just do a subtle Thug display and if that floats, I’ll stick Arms’ head in it later. That is the single best display idea you’ve ever come up with. You are my absolute favorite person right now! I may love you more than my thug!
We laughed for a long time, and other staff members started finding their way to our desk wanting to know why we were having such a good time. We did not share. They will find out soon enough.
And that’s a typical day at my library.
My first encounter with him was when he ran up to my desk, completely frantic, on the verge of tears, voice cracking and wild panting, wanting me to help him find someone he’d had three email exchanges with on Craigslist, and now his emails weren’t going through to her inbox. He wanted me to figure out a way to find her, a phone number, an address, an alternate email address, something he could use to continue communicating with her because suddenly he can’t get any email through to her account. Things had been going so well, too. He needed to know if she was okay and he had to find a way to talk to her still. All the while, he was sniffling and fighting back complete loss of emotional control.
My absolute favorite commercial out right now is this one.
And I had, at that moment, a fantasy about calling him a jackwagon and chucking a box of Kleenex at him. Seriously. Get your ass back from mamby-pamby-land and get a clue, crybaby.
Ugh. Teen porn and online stalking: he’s a winner.
Anyway, I was working in the office while Marina was at the reference desk and she sent me an IM.
Marina: Creepy Guy just asked me for a camera.
I laughed really, really hard and turned to my boss and shared this gem.
Boss: Did he want a web camera? Ewwww.
Me (typing to Marina): Web cam or digital camera?
Marina: Digital camera I think, but I didn’t ask. I don’t want to know.
Me (to Marina): Did he say why? Did he want to use it here or take it home?
Marina: He started to tell me why he wanted it and then stopped himself in the middle and quit explaining.
I roared with laughter and shared this bit with my boss as well.
Me (to boss): So, when are those volunteers coming back? The ones who clean the keyboards and stuff?
Boss: Not soon enough!
Me (to Marina): Whose turn is it to clean the computer stations?
Marina: The good news is he’s been here ALL DAY but I just keep giving him extensions on the computer he’s at, so he’s only touched one computer the whole time he’s been here.
Me (to Marina): Uh… good? Hey, [Coworker] comes back from vacation tonight. We could suggest she wipe down the computers when she’s looking for busywork.
Marina: That’s exactly what I was thinking!
Me (to Marina): Great minds think alike.
I later did not suggest to our beloved coworker that she wipe-down computers. I like her too much.
And to prove her worth, she came up with the most brilliant idea I’ve yet heard.
There’s been a world of controversy swirling around our library and our cherished security guard, Arms, has received some bad PR by a group of idiots who dubbed him a thug. It’s hysterical to me, but then again I don’t have to deal with the fallout, so I can afford to laugh.
Anyway, I was telling our recently-returned-from-vacation coworker about the mess, and she too was experiencing gut-busting laughter about it all, but she got me thinking that we needed to show our appreciation to Arms for all that he does, to stand by him. All week I’ve been saying we love our thug, and our thug can take your thug any day of the week. My boss even added, “Bring it on. It’ll make his day.”
Coworker: Someone said we were going to get him a t-shirt?
Me: Yeah, it should say something like “Have you hugged your thug today?” and have handprints on the back. Can you imagine how much Arms would freak out if we hugged him? Particularly you and me?!
We both laughed hard about that one because we pick on him a lot.
Coworker: “Thugs need hugs too!”
Me: “Thug love!”
Coworker: OH GOD, we should do a DISPLAY!
My tiny little brain began turning and a smile slowly spread across my face until I erupted with a scream of enthusiasm.
Me: YEAH!!!! I have so many thug-titled books in the street lit collection! We could subtly throw them all on a display and call it Thug Lovin’ or something like that, our homage to Arms!
Coworker: Do you think the director would get mad?
Me: Oh c’mon! I put his big, life-sized head in the middle of a display and he looked at it for a while and didn’t even realize it was his picture! He’ll never notice!
Coworker: Do you think we’ll get some heat? Will we get in trouble?
Me: Why would we?! It’s a mini street lit display, right? It’s not like we’ll put his picture on it. OR SHOULD WE? Would that be going too far?
Coworker: Oh, we should! We should put his big head right in the middle of the Thug Lovin’ part!
Me: Most people would have no idea what it was about. It would be pretty much an inside joke. Do you think we could get away with that?
Coworker: I don’t know.
Me: Maybe I’ll just do a subtle Thug display and if that floats, I’ll stick Arms’ head in it later. That is the single best display idea you’ve ever come up with. You are my absolute favorite person right now! I may love you more than my thug!
We laughed for a long time, and other staff members started finding their way to our desk wanting to know why we were having such a good time. We did not share. They will find out soon enough.
And that’s a typical day at my library.
**Update**
Done deal.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wish Book
In March I bought a bike. It was my first bike since I was a teenager and the billowing nostalgia washed over me as I instinctively got into my car and drove to the department store that represented all of my childhood wants: Sears.
If you’re old enough, you remember the Sears Wish Book, which was a catalog that Sears published annually, pre-Christmas, and it rivaled the size and heft of the most daunting tome my juvenile eyes had ever beheld.
Hours and hours of my life were spent pouring over each page in that behemoth, mentally drooling over every single thing any human could possibly want or need save for food, water and air. Every toy, every article of clothing, every electronic, every appliance, every tool, every THING anyone I knew could possibly crave was in that book. Until I was about nine, that Wish Book was completely mine, and every circled item description on each dog-eared page marked an item that I desperately wanted. When my brother was old enough to share in the mental drooling, we color coordinated the pens we used to circle items so that Santa would know who wanted what. Whether anything we ever dreamed of was purchased at Sears is a mystery to me. The gifts on the wish lists we compiled were likely purchased at any store where it was sold the cheapest, which was fine by us because as far as we were concerned, the Wish Book from Sears was merely a catalog of everything. It was the Amazon of my youth, hard copy.
Someone recently told me the largest seller of bicycles is Walmart, which makes sense, but I hate Walmart and only shop there when all else fails. There are pros and cons in dealing with large department stores. What you give up in skill, service and knowledge you bank on with apathetic employees who are more willing to accept returns and exchanges without questions or receipts because they’re not personally invested in the store’s success. Neither of these are selling points to me, but I hoped and anticipated that no matter how lacking the help at Sears could be, at least they’d be better than Walmart.
My $200 bike from Sears presented with problems immediately, and what frightened me was that my model wasn’t even a bike listed on Schwinn’s website as one they offered, so how proud were they of this product bearing their name? The seat was a veritable torture device, which was replaced after my very first ride, and then I immediately had to buy gloves with gel cushions because the grips on my handlebars were hard plastic. That was only the beginning. Quickly, my $200 bike was growing into a $300 bike, and no one could explain why my kickstand was way too short for the frame and would never hold it up or why I have to fill the tires with air each and every time I ride it. It must have taken four full months for me to finally find comfort on that bike, accessories and upgrades essential in making it a ridable vehicle. Bikes were not this complicated when I was a kid, and the difference between riding as an adult and riding as a child were so stark, it was a whole new experience to me.
Once I found my groove, felt as if the bike was finally where I needed it to be, and I could ride 10 – 20 miles at a time, I started experiencing problems with the gear shifting. Initially it was just violent shifting that would jolt me on the bike so hard, my feet would fly off the pedals and I’d momentarily lose balance. My brother kept promising to help me adjust my derailleurs, but it never happened. On a 20-mile ride last week, halfway into it, fifth gear would not hold at all and slipped harshly and continually into another gear, up and down, randomly. I ended up riding back to my car 10 miles in smaller gears, pedaling my glutes off, utterly exhausting myself trying to keep pace with the person I was riding with. The next day my brother attempted to adjust my derailleurs and discovered that sixth gear, not even the gear I had trouble with, had a quarter of the teeth missing. They did not look like fresh breaks, either, and though I hadn’t had any trouble riding in sixth gear, the fact that the teeth were broken did not give me confidence to test it.
Bike riders I know were incensed on my behalf over my very young bike being such a problem child already, and many times I was snapped at to return the lemon and get a real bike. However, my receipt only allowed for a refund within 90 days of purchase, which expired in mid-June, and as far as I could tell, I was stuck with it.
Boyfriend Extraordinaire, in an impressive showing of assertion and support, got on the phone and began making phone calls on my behalf, both to Sears and to Schwinn. By Monday, he had arrangements at Sears for me to drop the bike off, where a manager would take a look at the damage and decide whether they would replace the cassette or simply switch out the wheel with another bike, but they would do right by me and fix the problem for free. In the event that they failed, B.E. also secured a promise from Schwinn that they would send me a replacement part free of charge and all I had to do was get it installed. Plan A took place yesterday and I dropped the bike off at Sears, where The Bike Guy and The Manager would put their heads together today and fix my problem for me. I was told I’d receive a call in the morning with their decision.
My impatience was killing me. I couldn’t sleep last night at all, woke up far too early this morning, and managed to hold off until 11 am to call Sears about my bike when I, of course, had heard nothing from them.
This is when my lemon of a bike turned into a lemon of customer service.
The phone number listed for the Sears store where I took my bike was on an automated system. I spoke to the machine that I wanted the Repair Department, and I was forwarded to a new series of choices, none of which suited my needs, so I asked for Customer Assistance. A woman with an Indian-sounding accent answered the phone and I was immediately sifting through a cacophony of white noise of a call center surrounding her. When I spoke my problem to her, wanting to find out the status of my bike repair, she could not hear me. I repeated loudly and she still could not make out my words. Shouting at an uncomfortable volume was the only way she was able to discern the words I spoke, multiple continents away. When she finished taking my information, she transferred my call, and that line rang and rang and rang. Eventually someone picked it up and immediately hung the phone up on me.
Sigh… back to square one.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted Repair. Spoke that I wanted Customer Assistance. Was immediately disconnected before anyone in India could answer.
Deep breath.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted an Operator, hoping that this would give me a live person in the store itself. A man answered, I explained what I was looking for, he forwarded me to a department that forwarded me to another department, that never picked up the phone and I was disconnected for being on the line too long. Or so it seemed – the ringing stopped dead and the line disconnected.
Called Sears again! Spoke that I wanted Repair! Spoke that I wanted someone in Parts! Got another woman in India who also could not hear me unless I screamed myself hoarse, and she could not find a record of my purchase or me in Sears’ system, so I had to feed her all of my personal information at eardrum-puncturing volume, after which she said she’d transfer me to a store nearest my address. I managed to stop her before the transfer went through and explained that the local store was merely an outlet for tools, and I had taken my bike to the Sears Grand at the mall. This I had to repeat because I wasn’t screaming loud enough, though I felt as if she might have been able to hear me in India better if we hadn’t been holding up phones/headsets to our ears. She transferred me, someone answered after about five minutes of ringing and hold music, and they said I had to be transferred elsewhere, which resulted in another disconnection.
CALLEDSEARSAGAIN! It was now 11:30 and I’d been having conversations with machines and people in India for a half hour, with a mix of ringing, hold music, and disconnections to keep the conversations lively. I’d had it! I did not ask for Repair. I did not ask for Customer Assistance. I opted for the choice at the very end of the menu for someone in no particular department to handle my unclassifiable problem. It was a woman! And she sounded at least within 2,000 miles of me! And she spoke English without an accent! And she could hear me speak in my normal voice! Though now I felt a lot like screaming at someone! And I felt myself start to unload on her the horror of dealing with their automated system, India, screaming, being transferred all over the world, and disconnected more times than I even cared to count – would she please help me find someone at the store I went to just yesterday who had my bicycle?! In a very practiced, scripted voice she apologized for the inconvenience I’d experienced and promised to stay on the line with me until someone picked up the phone where she transferred me this time. Part of me wanted to hit her just because she was there, and another part of me wanted to French kiss her for finally being a person who pretended like she cared enough to get someone else on the line.
The man who took in my bike yesterday answered the phone and I explained who I was and why I was calling. Has there been a decision on what to do with my bicycle? That’s all I wanted to know. Nearly 40 minutes of fighting my way through a maze of dead-ended extensions and I could ask the question burning deep into my soul, and ask someone who was actually in a position to know.
Well, The Bike Guy isn’t in yet, and he only works on Fridays, but no one knows when he’ll show up. The Manager who was going to decide what to do hadn’t responded to the repeated attempts to get him to take a look at the bike and make the decision, and attempts had been made all day yesterday and were starting over today. If The Manager doesn’t make a decision before The Bike Guy leaves today, my bike will not be serviced and will have to wait until The Bike Guy returns sometime next Friday, at his leisure. But The Phone Guy promised to call me today with an answer, even though this Sears doesn’t do any bike repairs, which are usually sent 60 miles south of here to a bigger store that will take roughly 35 years to ship, fix, and ship back my bike. He was quite clear that they were doing me a favor by taking in my bike and considering fixing it themselves. And oh what a favor it was to indefinitely hold it hostage and create a myriad of puzzles one must solve in order to get through on the phone to find out if my bike has even been looked at by anyone who is kind enough to bless me with their attention. They sure do a helluva job avoiding being reachable. You’d think they didn’t want to deal with people. Who gives them business if not people?
The department store bike purchase has now become one of those epic mistakes I’ve made in my life, on par with dating a pro-wrestling fan, and one I will stand at every podium and climb upon every soapbox to warn people against following in my footsteps. Much as it causes parts of me to die a little bit, I can’t help but wonder if I should’ve gone to Walmart after all. No, no I shouldn’t have. That was a correct choice. I’d be in the same boat, except that I’d be able to get through to people at Walmart without having to call India twice, and find that they were equally apathetic about helping me get what I paid for.
On the verge of a nervous breakdown, feeling a lot like there was some kind of conspiracy taking place in the universe to keep me off of a bicycle, I called the local mom-and-pop bike shop, who have done right by me selling me the myriad of accessories and upgrades my lame bike has necessitated. Quickly I explained that I have a Schwinn that has broken teeth, Schwinn will send me a replacement cassette for free, which is so much easier than dealing with the numbskulls at Sears, and how much would they charge to install it. She did some mental math out loud, wheel off, change cassette, wheel on, and replied that the charge would run about $15.
Fifteen. Dollars.
How many gray hairs did I just get from dealing with Sears and how much will it cost to color those hairs for the rest of my life? More than $15.
How much is my time worth: driving to the mall, dropping off the bike, driving home, waiting around all morning for a call-back that would never occur, calling all around the globe for answers for nearly an hour, calling other places to fulfill Plan B, then returning to the mall to break my bike out of Sears prison and driving home again? More than $15.
How much is my sanity worth? Well, what little is left might be worth $15, but not much more.
So, it’s 3 pm and I’m on my way to retrieve my bike so that I can spend $15 and have it fixed by the people I should’ve bought a bike from to begin with!
Long gone are the Rockwellian days of the Wish Books and Sears love. Outsourced, no doubt.
If you’re old enough, you remember the Sears Wish Book, which was a catalog that Sears published annually, pre-Christmas, and it rivaled the size and heft of the most daunting tome my juvenile eyes had ever beheld.
Hours and hours of my life were spent pouring over each page in that behemoth, mentally drooling over every single thing any human could possibly want or need save for food, water and air. Every toy, every article of clothing, every electronic, every appliance, every tool, every THING anyone I knew could possibly crave was in that book. Until I was about nine, that Wish Book was completely mine, and every circled item description on each dog-eared page marked an item that I desperately wanted. When my brother was old enough to share in the mental drooling, we color coordinated the pens we used to circle items so that Santa would know who wanted what. Whether anything we ever dreamed of was purchased at Sears is a mystery to me. The gifts on the wish lists we compiled were likely purchased at any store where it was sold the cheapest, which was fine by us because as far as we were concerned, the Wish Book from Sears was merely a catalog of everything. It was the Amazon of my youth, hard copy.
Someone recently told me the largest seller of bicycles is Walmart, which makes sense, but I hate Walmart and only shop there when all else fails. There are pros and cons in dealing with large department stores. What you give up in skill, service and knowledge you bank on with apathetic employees who are more willing to accept returns and exchanges without questions or receipts because they’re not personally invested in the store’s success. Neither of these are selling points to me, but I hoped and anticipated that no matter how lacking the help at Sears could be, at least they’d be better than Walmart.
My $200 bike from Sears presented with problems immediately, and what frightened me was that my model wasn’t even a bike listed on Schwinn’s website as one they offered, so how proud were they of this product bearing their name? The seat was a veritable torture device, which was replaced after my very first ride, and then I immediately had to buy gloves with gel cushions because the grips on my handlebars were hard plastic. That was only the beginning. Quickly, my $200 bike was growing into a $300 bike, and no one could explain why my kickstand was way too short for the frame and would never hold it up or why I have to fill the tires with air each and every time I ride it. It must have taken four full months for me to finally find comfort on that bike, accessories and upgrades essential in making it a ridable vehicle. Bikes were not this complicated when I was a kid, and the difference between riding as an adult and riding as a child were so stark, it was a whole new experience to me.
Once I found my groove, felt as if the bike was finally where I needed it to be, and I could ride 10 – 20 miles at a time, I started experiencing problems with the gear shifting. Initially it was just violent shifting that would jolt me on the bike so hard, my feet would fly off the pedals and I’d momentarily lose balance. My brother kept promising to help me adjust my derailleurs, but it never happened. On a 20-mile ride last week, halfway into it, fifth gear would not hold at all and slipped harshly and continually into another gear, up and down, randomly. I ended up riding back to my car 10 miles in smaller gears, pedaling my glutes off, utterly exhausting myself trying to keep pace with the person I was riding with. The next day my brother attempted to adjust my derailleurs and discovered that sixth gear, not even the gear I had trouble with, had a quarter of the teeth missing. They did not look like fresh breaks, either, and though I hadn’t had any trouble riding in sixth gear, the fact that the teeth were broken did not give me confidence to test it.
Bike riders I know were incensed on my behalf over my very young bike being such a problem child already, and many times I was snapped at to return the lemon and get a real bike. However, my receipt only allowed for a refund within 90 days of purchase, which expired in mid-June, and as far as I could tell, I was stuck with it.
Boyfriend Extraordinaire, in an impressive showing of assertion and support, got on the phone and began making phone calls on my behalf, both to Sears and to Schwinn. By Monday, he had arrangements at Sears for me to drop the bike off, where a manager would take a look at the damage and decide whether they would replace the cassette or simply switch out the wheel with another bike, but they would do right by me and fix the problem for free. In the event that they failed, B.E. also secured a promise from Schwinn that they would send me a replacement part free of charge and all I had to do was get it installed. Plan A took place yesterday and I dropped the bike off at Sears, where The Bike Guy and The Manager would put their heads together today and fix my problem for me. I was told I’d receive a call in the morning with their decision.
My impatience was killing me. I couldn’t sleep last night at all, woke up far too early this morning, and managed to hold off until 11 am to call Sears about my bike when I, of course, had heard nothing from them.
This is when my lemon of a bike turned into a lemon of customer service.
The phone number listed for the Sears store where I took my bike was on an automated system. I spoke to the machine that I wanted the Repair Department, and I was forwarded to a new series of choices, none of which suited my needs, so I asked for Customer Assistance. A woman with an Indian-sounding accent answered the phone and I was immediately sifting through a cacophony of white noise of a call center surrounding her. When I spoke my problem to her, wanting to find out the status of my bike repair, she could not hear me. I repeated loudly and she still could not make out my words. Shouting at an uncomfortable volume was the only way she was able to discern the words I spoke, multiple continents away. When she finished taking my information, she transferred my call, and that line rang and rang and rang. Eventually someone picked it up and immediately hung the phone up on me.
Sigh… back to square one.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted Repair. Spoke that I wanted Customer Assistance. Was immediately disconnected before anyone in India could answer.
Deep breath.
Called Sears again. Spoke that I wanted an Operator, hoping that this would give me a live person in the store itself. A man answered, I explained what I was looking for, he forwarded me to a department that forwarded me to another department, that never picked up the phone and I was disconnected for being on the line too long. Or so it seemed – the ringing stopped dead and the line disconnected.
Called Sears again! Spoke that I wanted Repair! Spoke that I wanted someone in Parts! Got another woman in India who also could not hear me unless I screamed myself hoarse, and she could not find a record of my purchase or me in Sears’ system, so I had to feed her all of my personal information at eardrum-puncturing volume, after which she said she’d transfer me to a store nearest my address. I managed to stop her before the transfer went through and explained that the local store was merely an outlet for tools, and I had taken my bike to the Sears Grand at the mall. This I had to repeat because I wasn’t screaming loud enough, though I felt as if she might have been able to hear me in India better if we hadn’t been holding up phones/headsets to our ears. She transferred me, someone answered after about five minutes of ringing and hold music, and they said I had to be transferred elsewhere, which resulted in another disconnection.
CALLEDSEARSAGAIN! It was now 11:30 and I’d been having conversations with machines and people in India for a half hour, with a mix of ringing, hold music, and disconnections to keep the conversations lively. I’d had it! I did not ask for Repair. I did not ask for Customer Assistance. I opted for the choice at the very end of the menu for someone in no particular department to handle my unclassifiable problem. It was a woman! And she sounded at least within 2,000 miles of me! And she spoke English without an accent! And she could hear me speak in my normal voice! Though now I felt a lot like screaming at someone! And I felt myself start to unload on her the horror of dealing with their automated system, India, screaming, being transferred all over the world, and disconnected more times than I even cared to count – would she please help me find someone at the store I went to just yesterday who had my bicycle?! In a very practiced, scripted voice she apologized for the inconvenience I’d experienced and promised to stay on the line with me until someone picked up the phone where she transferred me this time. Part of me wanted to hit her just because she was there, and another part of me wanted to French kiss her for finally being a person who pretended like she cared enough to get someone else on the line.
The man who took in my bike yesterday answered the phone and I explained who I was and why I was calling. Has there been a decision on what to do with my bicycle? That’s all I wanted to know. Nearly 40 minutes of fighting my way through a maze of dead-ended extensions and I could ask the question burning deep into my soul, and ask someone who was actually in a position to know.
Well, The Bike Guy isn’t in yet, and he only works on Fridays, but no one knows when he’ll show up. The Manager who was going to decide what to do hadn’t responded to the repeated attempts to get him to take a look at the bike and make the decision, and attempts had been made all day yesterday and were starting over today. If The Manager doesn’t make a decision before The Bike Guy leaves today, my bike will not be serviced and will have to wait until The Bike Guy returns sometime next Friday, at his leisure. But The Phone Guy promised to call me today with an answer, even though this Sears doesn’t do any bike repairs, which are usually sent 60 miles south of here to a bigger store that will take roughly 35 years to ship, fix, and ship back my bike. He was quite clear that they were doing me a favor by taking in my bike and considering fixing it themselves. And oh what a favor it was to indefinitely hold it hostage and create a myriad of puzzles one must solve in order to get through on the phone to find out if my bike has even been looked at by anyone who is kind enough to bless me with their attention. They sure do a helluva job avoiding being reachable. You’d think they didn’t want to deal with people. Who gives them business if not people?
The department store bike purchase has now become one of those epic mistakes I’ve made in my life, on par with dating a pro-wrestling fan, and one I will stand at every podium and climb upon every soapbox to warn people against following in my footsteps. Much as it causes parts of me to die a little bit, I can’t help but wonder if I should’ve gone to Walmart after all. No, no I shouldn’t have. That was a correct choice. I’d be in the same boat, except that I’d be able to get through to people at Walmart without having to call India twice, and find that they were equally apathetic about helping me get what I paid for.
On the verge of a nervous breakdown, feeling a lot like there was some kind of conspiracy taking place in the universe to keep me off of a bicycle, I called the local mom-and-pop bike shop, who have done right by me selling me the myriad of accessories and upgrades my lame bike has necessitated. Quickly I explained that I have a Schwinn that has broken teeth, Schwinn will send me a replacement cassette for free, which is so much easier than dealing with the numbskulls at Sears, and how much would they charge to install it. She did some mental math out loud, wheel off, change cassette, wheel on, and replied that the charge would run about $15.
Fifteen. Dollars.
How many gray hairs did I just get from dealing with Sears and how much will it cost to color those hairs for the rest of my life? More than $15.
How much is my time worth: driving to the mall, dropping off the bike, driving home, waiting around all morning for a call-back that would never occur, calling all around the globe for answers for nearly an hour, calling other places to fulfill Plan B, then returning to the mall to break my bike out of Sears prison and driving home again? More than $15.
How much is my sanity worth? Well, what little is left might be worth $15, but not much more.
So, it’s 3 pm and I’m on my way to retrieve my bike so that I can spend $15 and have it fixed by the people I should’ve bought a bike from to begin with!
Long gone are the Rockwellian days of the Wish Books and Sears love. Outsourced, no doubt.
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Back Talker
A man walked up to my desk and mumbled something to me, which I could not make out. All I heard was something about signing up for something. Given that our newsletter just landed in the mailboxes of all our residents, he could’ve been asking to sign up for any number of things.
Me: Excuse me? You’d like to sign up for what?
He rolled his eyes at me, turned his back to me and leaned against my desk facing away, and mumbled again, “[Mumble]...sign up...[mumble]...library card...[mumble]...for a few minutes.”
I know why old people are cranky. I’m getting there way before my time already. Patience with rude, inconsiderate and stupid people runs very thin somewhere around the age of 35, if you’ve been dealing with the public. The more you deal with the public, the quicker it runs out.
Surmising from the three phrases I managed to understand, and completely jumping to conclusions about the mumbles that interspersed the intelligible portion of his conversation with me, I not so patiently replied to him.
Me: I’m sorry but it’s hard to understand you when you’re not even talking TOWARD me. Are you asking for a reservation for an Express computer because you don’t have your library card?
Him (glancing over his shoulder, rolling his eyes again): YES, a COM-PEW-TUR!
This guy was not a punk 14-year-old. He was easily in his late 20s, judging by his receding hairline and slight acne still upon his skin. And by the way, he needed to wash his thinning hair. Even though there wasn’t much, it was greasy-gross. I should also mention I might not have noticed how clumpy and sticky his shiny hair was if that wasn’t the part of his head he insisted on presenting to me.
So I made the reservation, tore off the reservation slip, and held my hand out to his back. Still he would not turn around and face me, and eventually he noticed out of the corner of his eye that I had my arm extended to hand him the slip. With maximum effort -- I kid you not -- he twisted his arm around backward so that he wouldn’t have to actually move his body at all, and just opened his hand up so I could put the slip into it.
I did not gracefully and delicately place it into his hand, lets just say.
From there, things did not improve. Though I was helping other people, in the middle of explaining something with words flowing freely from my informative lips in the direction of patrons standing before me, FACING ME, he would yell to me from the computer, “MISS! MISS! THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
“This” being his brain? Sorry, I’m not trained in handling that kind of problem.
I grew tired of looking at him in the middle of my conversation and giving him the finger.
Not that finger. Thought I very much wanted to.
The hold-one-minute finger.
Eventually I quit bothering with the finger and just kept talking. He would sigh and get the point, though it didn’t stop him from continually doing this throughout his stay.
What it turns out he needed was something from his mortgage company that had his address on it. A simple bank statement wouldn’t work. Apparently, in order to register his child for school, he had to prove not only his address with formal ID, but ownership of property. I’m guessing he was mistaken but this was what he insisted upon, and logging into his online account did not include the physical address of the property anywhere in the account, so he was frantically demanding I figure out what he could do.
I asked if another item would suffice: utility bill, car insurance card, etc.
He looked at me with incredulity.
Guy: They’ll take a car insurance card?
Me: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. What I’m asking YOU is if you asked them if they’ll take anything else with your address on it.
Guy: I don’t know. Why would they take my car insurance card?
Me: Because some have an address printed on them, which may or may not be enough proof that your car is registered to that address. That’s something else with an address -- car registration. I mean, there are a number of options, but I can’t tell you what the school will accept.
Guy: But why doesn’t the mortgage put my address on my online account?
Me: I don’t know that either, but it’s probably a security measure. You log into your credit card account and, at least with mine, they don’t put the account number on it. Sometimes the last four digits, but mostly you just have to know it’s yours and recognize the rest of the information. It’s for your protection.
Guy: So how am I supposed to get this information?!
Me: Call your mortgage company and see if they can print something out for you. Or call the school and see if they’ll take something else.
Guy: But what else would they take?!
I was tempted -- oh so tempted -- to turn my back on him and mumble my repeat of suggestions, rolling my eyes. If he can dish it out he should certainly be able to take it, but that is almost never the case.
Instead I paused and repeated. He was realizing that his problem wasn’t going to be immediately solved and so he stormed out.
Good riddance, I say.
Or...
[Mumble] riddance...
Me: Excuse me? You’d like to sign up for what?
He rolled his eyes at me, turned his back to me and leaned against my desk facing away, and mumbled again, “[Mumble]...sign up...[mumble]...library card...[mumble]...for a few minutes.”
I know why old people are cranky. I’m getting there way before my time already. Patience with rude, inconsiderate and stupid people runs very thin somewhere around the age of 35, if you’ve been dealing with the public. The more you deal with the public, the quicker it runs out.
Surmising from the three phrases I managed to understand, and completely jumping to conclusions about the mumbles that interspersed the intelligible portion of his conversation with me, I not so patiently replied to him.
Me: I’m sorry but it’s hard to understand you when you’re not even talking TOWARD me. Are you asking for a reservation for an Express computer because you don’t have your library card?
Him (glancing over his shoulder, rolling his eyes again): YES, a COM-PEW-TUR!
This guy was not a punk 14-year-old. He was easily in his late 20s, judging by his receding hairline and slight acne still upon his skin. And by the way, he needed to wash his thinning hair. Even though there wasn’t much, it was greasy-gross. I should also mention I might not have noticed how clumpy and sticky his shiny hair was if that wasn’t the part of his head he insisted on presenting to me.
So I made the reservation, tore off the reservation slip, and held my hand out to his back. Still he would not turn around and face me, and eventually he noticed out of the corner of his eye that I had my arm extended to hand him the slip. With maximum effort -- I kid you not -- he twisted his arm around backward so that he wouldn’t have to actually move his body at all, and just opened his hand up so I could put the slip into it.
I did not gracefully and delicately place it into his hand, lets just say.
From there, things did not improve. Though I was helping other people, in the middle of explaining something with words flowing freely from my informative lips in the direction of patrons standing before me, FACING ME, he would yell to me from the computer, “MISS! MISS! THIS ISN’T WORKING!”
“This” being his brain? Sorry, I’m not trained in handling that kind of problem.
I grew tired of looking at him in the middle of my conversation and giving him the finger.
Not that finger. Thought I very much wanted to.
The hold-one-minute finger.
Eventually I quit bothering with the finger and just kept talking. He would sigh and get the point, though it didn’t stop him from continually doing this throughout his stay.
What it turns out he needed was something from his mortgage company that had his address on it. A simple bank statement wouldn’t work. Apparently, in order to register his child for school, he had to prove not only his address with formal ID, but ownership of property. I’m guessing he was mistaken but this was what he insisted upon, and logging into his online account did not include the physical address of the property anywhere in the account, so he was frantically demanding I figure out what he could do.
I asked if another item would suffice: utility bill, car insurance card, etc.
He looked at me with incredulity.
Guy: They’ll take a car insurance card?
Me: Well, I don’t know. You’d have to ask them. What I’m asking YOU is if you asked them if they’ll take anything else with your address on it.
Guy: I don’t know. Why would they take my car insurance card?
Me: Because some have an address printed on them, which may or may not be enough proof that your car is registered to that address. That’s something else with an address -- car registration. I mean, there are a number of options, but I can’t tell you what the school will accept.
Guy: But why doesn’t the mortgage put my address on my online account?
Me: I don’t know that either, but it’s probably a security measure. You log into your credit card account and, at least with mine, they don’t put the account number on it. Sometimes the last four digits, but mostly you just have to know it’s yours and recognize the rest of the information. It’s for your protection.
Guy: So how am I supposed to get this information?!
Me: Call your mortgage company and see if they can print something out for you. Or call the school and see if they’ll take something else.
Guy: But what else would they take?!
I was tempted -- oh so tempted -- to turn my back on him and mumble my repeat of suggestions, rolling my eyes. If he can dish it out he should certainly be able to take it, but that is almost never the case.
Instead I paused and repeated. He was realizing that his problem wasn’t going to be immediately solved and so he stormed out.
Good riddance, I say.
Or...
[Mumble] riddance...
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