Pockets

Pockets are not attractive. I realize they are very important, essential possibly, for many people to have built into their attire. It’s why we love marsupials so much – pocket envy. We need to have stuff with us. Given the size of women’s purses, the number of pockets in cargo pants, and the inability to get rid of silly little breast pocket on shirts, pockets are clearly here to stay. However, they are ugly and they distort the shape of our silhouettes, weigh down our clothes with stuff, and no matter how neatly they are sewn into the designs, they still look bulky and droopy, and the more you have, the bulkier and droopier you look.

That said, women, your bra is not a pocket.

If you’re going to walk around in microscopic shorts, a tank top and a bra, your bra does not become a place to keep your cell phone, reminder notes, money, lipstick, or other necessities. Get a purse like the rest of us. And if you pull a library card out of your sweaty bosom, you might as well put it right back in there because we are not going to handle that biologically contaminated tit-card. Your girls are round, they are pretty, they are soft and they should be treated with respect. If you put 53¢ in change in your bra, along a wad of bills and your credit card, those breasts end up looking like a refrigerator decked out in too many magnets. I can only imagine what your boobies look like at the end of the day, the indentations, maybe even the paper cuts, and nothing you can wiggle or jiggle will make them look nice when there’s an imprint of a quarter and the large, rectangular fossil of your cell phone visible on that soft flesh. It doesn’t matter if it says Samsung or Blackberry backwards on your melon – that’s just trashy. Get your shit out of your bra, ladies.

Also, men, your underwear do not qualify as a pocket.

If some smart designer started putting pockets in boxers (for surely there’s no comfortable place to put them in briefs), the pocket wouldn’t be right down the center of your waistband. When you reach down there to pull something out – anything out – you should be prepared to be either arrested or ridiculed because nothing down there is something you want to show to a librarian, even if it’s just your library card. Unless your full-time job is at a male strip club, you moonlight doing stripper-grams, and you’re in really high demand, leave it in your pants, you perv. If it’s touched a part of your skin that is warmer than room temperature, we don’t want anything to do with it. I know there’s a long-standing tradition of stuffing socks down there, and that’s fine so long as you don’t whip out that sock and hand it to me. In fact, stuff whatever you want down there, but whatever it is has to stay. You’re stuck with it. Money, credit cards, cell phone, hamster, tapioca, Brilo pad, or whatever your heart (ahem) desires to have down your underwear is between you and your underwear, literally. Keep it to yourself.

So, while I admit I use pockets, though I dislike any more than one or two in my clothing, I don’t like people creating pockets where none exists. And what baffles me the most is why don’t these people put pretend pockets somewhere that isn’t R-rated?

I swear, I don’t know why I serve the public. The public is so creepy.

What I Learned Camping

When I was in Girl Scouts, we went on a two-day camping trip to Butternut Springs. This was something like 28 years ago, and the way it was set up was there was a cabin for the troop leaders to sleep in, prepare meals, and a dining room to feed the troops. The girls camped in tents in the surrounding woods. These were permanent tents with a deck-like floor and prison beds and mattresses inside. Given that it was in Indiana, and we were there in the height of a sweltering summer, we were fairly miserable in the woods, sweating and bored, with only a single strip of flypaper hanging in the tent for bug protection. The first night we were there, I did the sensible thing any kid who had been trained by her cruel, older cousin would do: I scared the crap out of the girls telling them ghost stories in the dark. Many of the girls couldn’t sleep, either because they were terrified or because they were homesick, and throughout the night many cries were heard from many of the tents. And then a terrible storm hit, which quieted the sobbing, but also brought a tree down on one of the tents. In the morning, the nonchalant troop leaders congratulated us on surviving our first night camping and said the second night would be easier. I was having nothing of that and I organized a coup against the leaders. Screaming, crying, whining girls ranging from 6 to 12 years old, dozens of them, have a way of wearing down the defenses of even the most weathered troop leaders, and the second night we slept in the cabin, snug as bugs in our sleeping bags on the linoleum floor of the dining hall. So went my first camping experience, which I don’t really count as camping.

Last weekend I camped for the first time for real. Aside from having a lot of fun, it was quite a learning experience. And being a good librarian, I’m going to share it with you. (Click pictures to embiggen.)

1. This stuff, without DEET, is awesome at keeping bugs away. This is not a light statement made by someone who can frolic in the woods with Skin-So-Soft. Oh no! If there is a biting bug within 100 yards of me, it will find me, send up a signal to any biting bug in 4 square miles, and the swarm will descend upon me with ravenous hunger until I am all but exsanguinated. They leave enough blood for me to survive so that they can feed upon me when I step outdoors the next time.
This is the stuff I usually use. If you can’t read that, it says 98% DEET. This is the only way for me to come in from an evening outdoors without losing my mind – and my blood.

2. Putting up a tent is a lot easier than I thought it would be. But it would’ve been a whole lot easier if it hadn’t been 95º.Even the tent wanted to melt. Taking down a tent is easy too. Getting it back into the container it came in is a whole nother story. Good luck.

3. Never bring a photographer with you on camping trip. They are way more interested taking pictures of you putting up the tent than actually helping put it up.

4. When your car wobbles (or shakes violently) at high speeds, something is wrong. If you have the tires rebalanced and this does not fix it, check again. Because sitting in your car on the banks of the Mississippi River on a Saturday night, changing a flat for a spare, trying to find space in your already packed car for the tire that was worn down to the cords is really going to put a damper on the whole camping experience.

5. This little LED lantern (which is merely 5½ inches tall) generates enough light in a 9’ x 9’ tent for two people to lay on their bellies and do crossword puzzles in the darkness of the late night, while waiting for the neighboring tent campers to either kill one another, or shut the fuck up. Handy little device. I highly recommend it.

6. If Person One is in the tent doing crosswords with the lantern on, head positioned right by the tent door, turn OFF the lantern for a few moments before Person Two enters tent, or all the moths, gnats and other light-attracted bugs who are patiently waiting at the door to get at the lantern will invariably get into the tent and drive you completely mad.


7. These batteries only work if you scrape them with something metal each and every time you use them in the little LED lantern. Totally retarded. Don’t know why. Don’t know why we tried this. They worked fine in B.E.’s camera, his camera batteries worked fine in the lantern, but these batteries + the above lantern = need for scraping.

8. When you have inconsiderate, idiot camping neighbors who stay up until 1 am setting up their tents, hammering their spikes with actual hammers and not mallets, vacuuming the tents out, using their car headlights to do all this, with the keys in the ignition and the alarm going off the entire time, slamming car doors every three seconds, no matter how many times you complain, they will insist they’re almost done and that your complaints are absolutely unreasonable.

9. However, revenge is yours in the morning when the drunken losers are trying to sleep off their hangovers. Revenge is sweet. And best served cold. And loud.

10. Millipedes are gross, but massive quantities of millipedes in the campground’s bathrooms/showers are massively gross.

11. When you camp and the temperatures are already above the mid 80s by 7 am, you get so sweaty, so slimy, so dirty, that even in showers infested with 1-inch millipedes, you will shower daily, and you will be grateful for the ability to do so.

12. Bug spray needs to be reapplied before you leave the safety of the shower. Freshly showered humans are most delectable.

13. Trees make for nice insulation against noise, protect you from the direct sunlight that seeks to fry you to a blistering pulp, and provides perches for the early morning birds that sing you awake. Yay trees!

14. Trees also are the homes of many bugs that will annoy you to no end. Tit for tat.

15. The only thing worse than sunburn is sunburn with bug bites on top of it.

16. If you have a sweetie with you who will scratch your sunburn and bug bites for you, you are a lucky, lucky person.

17. No matter how awful you think the whole experience is going to be, it’s never going to be that bad. Bring the condoms just in case. Assuming you won’t be in the mood is an underestimate. Being sexually frustrated in the woods is just sad.

18. Air mattress. Get one. You will not regret it.

19. A bag of cherries is great for camping. Put them in the cooler and the cherries will stay fresh longer, but they will dye the ice water a purple-ish red color. Which will dye everything else a purple-ish red color.

20. You, too, can have the coolest meals around if you have a propane stove and make pizzas for dinner! Others are eating sandwiches, or burgers and hot dogs that are not cooked enough, or cooked too much. Pizzas rock.

And so, despite the heat, bugs, things we forgot, people who irritated us, car mishaps and general annoyances, we had a really great time and are already planning our next camping trip. After we get an air mattress.

Benje

I learned to read when I was three years old. That sounds a lot more impressive than it is because all I did was beg my parents to read the same bedtime story over and over every night until I memorized it. Once I could recite the entire book cover to cover, I applied my knowledge of those words and the combinations of letters I saw on the pages of the book, and quickly understood what I was looking at. After I figured that out, I was able to read other books and increase my written vocabulary by recognizing words I already knew and adding the sounds of the letters around those familiar words. It was a lot of figuring out, but from an early age, once I had a taste of something I liked, like reading, I attacked it and had to devour it entirely.

Working in a library, I run into many people who also love to read, and though I haven’t interviewed them all, I suspect they all have a book – a single, solitary book – that they can trace their love of reading back to, and will remember that book (or the essence of that book) for the remainder of their cognizant lives.

My book, which not only taught me how to read but also bred my love of books, was Benje, by Elizabeth Rice. It’s a touching story about a squirrel who loses his tail in a trap and becomes depressed because he isn’t like the other squirrels and can’t do the same things he used to as well. Eventually he’s talked to by an owl, who teaches him to appreciate what he has and learn to do things again without his tail. He does and lives happily ever after. Something about the sad, tailless squirrel spoke to me and the book just stuck.

This is the actual book, which some 34 years ago turned an ordinary child who was a veritable blank slate into a life-long reader.

I’m curious what your book is. What started you on the path of being a reader?

Benefits

At the reference desk, we have about seven of these toys for the public (and us) as a form of self-entertainment.

The director walked over to the desk and as he started asking us how things were going, he flipped one of the seven toys over, but left the other six as they were.

This bothered the OCD part of my brain, and with no regard for his position, I snapped, “You can’t just DO that! You have to flip them ALL now!”

And so he did. With a smile. And without batting an eyelash or challenging my tone of voice. It was great.

So…

Me: Now stand on one foot and “bock” like a chicken.

Director: I’ll do that… later. That’s an after-hours game.

Me: Oh my! What other tricks do you do after hours?

He laughed evilly.

My partner at the desk, who’d only last week sung along with the “My Ding-A-Ling” song, begged out of the conversation because it was getting too racy, but typical of her, she never actually left and then rejoined and upped the ante.

Partner: Do you play the chicken with feathers or without?

Director: Well… [more evil laughter]

Me: He starts out with feathers, but then…

He began making sexy plucking motions that had me in hysterics.

Ahh, the benefits at my job are not monetary, but they do exist.

* * *

One of my favorite regulars was in using the computer, as always.

On his way out, he asked about our Summer Reading Club display (which I will share with you when I get a chance – it’s so twisted), and we joked about it for a few minutes, then he left.

I turned away and heard a crash, looked up to see him, and he was looking at the big glass door, dazed, and his son was laughing at him.

I shouted, incredulously, “Did you just run into the DOOR?”

He scrunched his head down between his shoulders, giggled a little, and left.

My partner at the desk looked at me and we both busted up. It reminded me of the glass conversation I’d had with my brother a while ago, and I couldn’t stop chuckling.

Partner: You’re so mean! You shouted that! ‘Did you just run into the DOOR?’ Everyone looked up and saw him!

Me: I… I… was concerned about him.

We collapsed into giggles.

Partner: You were not! You embarrassed him!

Me: No! He embarrassed himself! I was worried about his health! His mental health, but still!

Partner: And people say I’m mean!

Me: You are mean! But that’s why we like working together.

And we do. More benefits you just can’t put a price on.

Hands

His hands were a deep bronze hue from years of sun exposure, a shade of brown that no longer faded in the winter. If you flipped them over, palm up, you’d see the softer, tender pink shade that likely was the same color since his birth. They were strong hands, but not hard, not callused. He’d broken many fingers, many times, and his knuckles, which sometimes locked up on him, were large and appeared knobby with his slim, dark fingers. His fingernails were odd, unlike any I’d ever seen before. Instead of being curved over the tops, they were flat, then angled down sharply toward the cuticles, and if they grew out beyond his finger, they curved sharply inward, creating something like the lid of a box closing over the ends of his fingers. My nails have this tendency as well, but not nearly as pronounced as his. His skin was smooth, no coarse hairs anywhere on his hands or arms, and his veins were pipes making rolling hills on his flesh. He worked with his hands a lot, had scars, blackened nails sometimes, and he wasn’t afraid that they’d ever get ugly from use, though they never did.

His hands always mesmerized me. I’d sit near him and turn them over, study them, open his fingers, close them tightly, hold mine up against his, compare them, try to get mine to look like his, wonder if they would be identical when I got to be his age, and finally rest with my hand in his. Long ago he could fit my entire balled-up fist inside his own, and later we simply folded our fingers together, almost matched in size.

I miss his hands.

Those were the hands that tucked me in the best, mummifying me in my blankets, rendering me immobile in my own bed. They were also the hands that brushed my hair the gentlest, for he was terrified of discovering a snarl and yanking too hard. When I was really little, after a bath he’d wrap me up in a trove of towels, naming each towel a piece of my royal garb, declaring me a princess, and they were wrapped so securely that I could prance around the house in my terrycloth regalia until it was bedtime and I had to put on pedestrian pajamas. They were the hands, too, that would take my cares away when I’d lay in his lap and he’d stroke my back softly. To this very day the technique still works, if only I could find someone who could master the touch that he had. These hands pushed me so high on the swings that I always soared over everyone else at the park, until the day when my own hands betrayed me and I fell, head-first, from high in the air, and then his hands carried me home and never pushed me on a swing again.

I didn’t hold it against his hands when he spanked me, which I mostly deserved, though not always. Nor did I hate them after he smacked me in the face so hard it catapulted me across the room and I bounced off my bed and landed on the floor, bruises created during the landing and mortification alone brought on by the hit itself. It wasn’t the fault of his hands. How could they know my mother had lied and told him something I did wrong that never happened? When I innocently denied it, it came down to a decision over who was lying, and in this case those hands didn’t know his head had been fooled and I took the hit while the liar watched with satisfaction. His hands stood for justice, even when the delivery was wrong.

I watched his hands when he wrote his detailed notes on the yellow legal pads he used for everything; I watched them bending wire clothes hangers in just the right shape for us to dip hard-boiled eggs in dyes; I watched him fumble and gain confidence as he learned to use a keyboard and mouse with his hands, so adept at everything else and so clumsy with a computer; I watched him build things; I watched him dismantle things; I watched him rebuild things; and I watched those hands twitching subtly when he fell asleep in the recliner in the middle of a lazy afternoon.

Sometimes, when my hands darken up with a summer tan, I hold them up and they resemble his hands -- this makes me feel good. I don’t always wield them like he did. Mine are not hands that hit, or hands that do hard work. My hands may never sport popsicle sticks fastened with duct tape over a broken finger, or do intricate wiring to fix a broken electrical device, or build furniture, or be remotely as interesting to my adoring eyes as his hands were. However, the reminder is there, the vague resemblance, and it’s a part of the legacy he left me. They are closely related in that I use my hands to show love: a gentle touch, the sweeping of my fingers across sensitive skin, a tender embrace, a firm squeeze to show support, a soft pat to bring comfort, or just curling my fingers around someone else’s for closeness. They are things his hands did, things they taught me about people, about love, about myself, about what’s important, and though I miss his hands tremendously, I treasure the memories, good and bad, because so much of him was revealed in his hands. And so much of him remains in my own.

Sing It Again, Sam

Given the title of my last post, about doorbells and why we have to ring them for help from our coworkers, the subject of this one is going to look fake, but I swear people, I cannot make this stuff up.

Allow me to introduce the guest of my post tonight: skinny guy with scraggly facial hair, a mullet, a red wife-beater, bad posture, shorts made from cut-off sweatpants and a farmer’s tan that turned parts of him so red, it looked like his tank top was actually a full-length shirt with white holes in certain areas.

The conversation that ensued probably won’t translate as well to written word, as many of my encounters do not, but I feel compelled to try.

Guy: Hey, I was just at [Neighboring] Library and asked them a question, but they just looked at me like I was NUTS.

Any conversation that opens with a line like that is about to become blog fodder. This I know from experience. Fortunately, my coworker had finished helping the odd, affable guy with the big Jesus belt buckle, and as she was walking toward the desk, our redneck friend (who was looked at like he was nuts at another library) decided to approach my partner.

Maybe I was already reaching for scrap paper to take notes and appeared busy. Could be.

Guy: There’s this song, and I wanted some information about it. Maybe you’ve heard it. It’s called “My Ding-A-Ling.”

I bit my lip to hide the emerging grin and sniffled to cover my brief giggle. Not only was this guy dead serious, he was talking so loudly that the entire library went quiet. And mine is a library that is seldom quiet unless the computers are down or the police are walking through. The soft pitter-pat of 20 computer users tapping away at their keyboards, a wonderful white noise that keeps me from hearing all their personal bodily turbulence, abruptly slammed to stop, giving my ears whiplash, plunging us all headfirst into a dead silence. There was not a mouse click in the whole building save for my partner, looking up the "Ding-A-Ling" song.

Guy: Do you know how it goes? It’s like, “My ding-a-ling, won’t you play with my ding-a-ling…”

I was suddenly very interested in inspecting the ceiling tiles, tongue attempting to poke a hole in my own cheek, grimacing at the pain of trying not to laugh. Oh, look! There are more dead bugs in the fluorescent lights! Surely I should ponder this instead of listening to the conversation going on only three feet from me!

Professional in a pinch, but seldom so elsewise, she started rattling off facts about the song to this guy, something about Chuck Berry, something about 1972, blah-blah-blah, and she asked what else he wanted to know about the song.

Guy: Well, I kinda know how it goes, but I want the lyrics. It’s something like “it’s the prettiest little song you ever had…”

And then something spec-fucking-tacular occurred!

Partner: Right, then it goes, “And those of you who will not sing, must be playing with your own ding-a-ling”

The patrons situated on the perimeter of our reference desk erupted in gut-busting, capillary-popping, wailing laughter. Patrons all around me were red-faced and gasping for air, no longer interested in politely eavesdropping on the patron’s request, but full-on, no-holds-barred, doubled-over hilarity hearing the librarian talk about playing with a ding-a-ling.

Seeing the reaction of so many people positively roar with uncontrollable laughs made me lose it, and I came very close to having to excuse myself to find somewhere with more oxygen and possibly a diaper for my own safety.

The conversation went on, him quoting parts of the song, her nodding stoically as she read along with the lyrics online, telling him that he had the words right, correcting him here and there when it wasn’t “ding-a-ling”, but the longer “ding-a-ling-a-ling”.

Two teens in particular, a young man and a young woman, were holding each other up listening to these two people recite the words, looking at me for some confirmation that this was for real and not staged. I just shook my head in disbelief and continued laughing, trying my hardest not to look at this guy.

He went on and on about the song.

Guy: You know, they used to sing it in bars, too. And it’s not about what you think it’s about, which is why it’s so fun to sing, right? I mean, it’s great to sing about your ding-a-ling!

Partner: Uh-huh, I remember this song. So, do you want me to print the lyrics out for you?

Guy: Oh yeah! That would be great! I gotta take this back over to [Neighboring] Library and show them, since they thought I was nuts. I’ll sing it to ‘em, now that I got the lyrics, and I bet they’ll remember it then.

Partner: Um, yeah.

Guy: This is great! I gotta show Randy!

Partner: Okay.

Guy: And we can sing “My Ding-A-Ling” all the time!

Partner: Uh-huh.

She never laughed. She was perfectly calm, perfectly unamused, and only started laughing when the patron walked away and she saw how hard everyone else was laughing.

Indignantly, she scoffed at us.

Partner: What?! It’s just as song!

I bounced up and down in my chair, childish grin on my face and said, “Sing it again! Please! PUH-LEEEEZE!”

She brushed me off and walked away, leaving me cracking up with the nearby patrons, and we were content with the memory of hearing her recite the “My Ding-A-Ling” lyrics to a patron.

Ding-Dongs

Marina: Sorry

I had a rather demanding patron

Me: Did you ding-dong for help? Is that why [coworker] was out there?

Marina: yes

Me: Oh my, whatever did she want?

Marina: I needed him to help the other woman while I scrolled through page after page of abuse memoirs.

Only like 3 were of any interest to her and then we didn't have them.

Me: Figures.

Sheesh.

Marina: yeah

I think she's coming back when she’s done on the express computers.

Me: Of course. Why would she bug only one staff member?!

Marina: What I don't get is why I'm going through this when she doesn't even have a card to check the books out on

This is when I realized the patron Marina was talking about was the one Circ had told me about, who came in with no money, no wallet, no ID, and had a story about how she just left her boyfriend with only the clothes she was wearing. She wanted a library card, but without any proof of who she was, saying that her boyfriend was possessive of her ID and wouldn’t let her have it. Odd story. But the woman was odder still.

Me: Ugh.

Yesterday I had a lady get really pissed because she wanted Chicago museum passes, and I said we didn't have any for the Shedd Aquarium or other museums she wanted, that the Chicago Public Libraries had some kind of program, but it could be exclusive to their patrons, and she threw a tantrum.

Insisted Brookfield Zoo was in Chicago and I was lying about the Chicago museums.

And WHEN would they be available and WHO could she talk to about getting them.

Because having Brookfield Zoo passes meant they all should be in there.

Marina: wow

I hate our patrons somedays

Me: Uh huh

Marina: it drives me CRAZY when people stalk me in the stacks while I'm helping someone else to ask me questions

Me: Oh yes

That creeps me out totally

Marina: I have to refrain from spinning around and screaming "back the f%&* off" at people

Me: Patron paparazzi.

Marina: I would recommend going home sick

You don't want to be out here tonight

Me: Hmm, I'm eating cheese.

That could parlay into digestive problems.

Marina: close down the whole desk and go to a bar with [coworker]

Me: Oh, you are sounding wiser and wiser with every sentence.

Marina: :)

Me: [Coworker] will love you for it too

AND it's payday

So that means I can afford a drink and not a water at a bar.

but sadly, only one drink.

Marina: aww :(

Me: baby needs an oil change

Marina: but you have heirloom tomatoes instead

is that expensive?

Me: I do have tomatoes, and oil changes are not expensive, but drinks are. The ones I like, anyway.

Marina: me too :(

Me: Fruit, frozen, gigantic glasses, umbrellas... pricey.

Marina: damn my girlie taste buds

Me: MINE TOO!

Damn them!

Marina: :)

Me: A friend of mine started calling me Malibu Barbie. Fucker.

Marina: stab him

with an umbrella :)

Me: I shall. With my high heel.

Marina: ooh even better

Me: So, shall we compose our stabbing list?

Patrons who stalk and paparazzi us.

Marina: patrons who can't use Google Maps.

Me: Grrrr.

Marina: Patrons who don't know how to turn off mute.

Me: Being made fun of for being girlie girls.

Not enough cheese in your pasta.

Not enough money for all the drinks your job makes you need.

Marina: Patrons who don't realize that minimize just minimizes their screen.

Calories.

Me: OOOR, patrons who you tell to minimize their screen and instead they hit the restore size button and it just makes the window smaller.

Marina: Oh god! I HATE that!

Me: NUMLOCKS!

Marina: I had to explain links to that woman at least 3 or 4 times today

Me: She is so dense.

Marina: yeah :(

Me: HOH, and yesterday, here's a new one. Woman wanted us to show her how to put her picture up on YouTube (which she called YouToo) so she could be rich and famous too. What? It's for videos? You have to have a video camera? You have to upload? Oh, I can't do that. I'll have to find another way to get rich and famous.

Marina: OMG

I think the shorter list might be the non-stabbing list

Me: Sigh...

True.

This could go on all night.

Marina: it really could

And it did. The woman whose boyfriend is possessive of her ID was very nearly as irritatingly needy as Needy Betty. She went outside to smoke and stood right at the front door, so a non-smoking patron yelled at her that he couldn’t even walk to his car without having to breathe in her smoke, and she was so upset by his statement that she came in and told everyone how hurtful he was. I thought about telling her about the Illinois law that requires people to be at least a certain distance from the front door of businesses if they’re smoking, but she stunk so badly that I didn’t want to talk to her for any longer.

Somehow, she had enough money to be carrying around a big cup of gas station coffee and she purchased headphones from Circ, so she did have cash on her, despite her claims. And she struck another of my pet peeves by carrying around this coffee cup that was actually three coffee cups stacked inside one another. Look, folks, I understand that two cups together help insulate, but I still see it as a waste, and the “green” girl inside me wants to smack you silly. Bring your own damn travel mug and gas stations will let you “refill” it for a fraction of the cost. Anyway, this woman had THREE cups sleeved together, and that irritated me even more! On top of that, she kept leaving her garbage wherever she went. I found that stupid three-tiered coffee cup sitting on the counter in the washroom, right by the garbage can. The patron (who was as odd, or odder) who used her computer after her stood by it, mouth agape, horrified, saying that there was garbage all over the computer and he didn’t want to use it. It was the packaging from this woman’s headphones, that’s all. I heard him whisper to his girlfriend, “There could be DRUGS in there or something. Did you SEE that lady? Ick.” Sometimes I feel like it might be best to let the patrons kill each other and solve many of my problems for me.

Later on, when she couldn’t use one of the computers because they were all taken, she asked to use my phone and proceeded to start calling people to come and pick her up, but no one could. That’s when the neediness got REALLY irritating.

Lady: No one can come and get me.

Me: Oh really?

Lady: And I have to walk all the way by the Walgreens. Can you tell me how far that is? Because I think it’s really far.

I looked it up. It was 2.5 miles.

Lady: *gasp* That’s a LONG way. And it’s COLD outside! Can you tell me what the temperature is?

Me: It’s 67º.

Lady: That’s way too cold to walk almost three miles.

Seriously? To me, that’s just the right temperature to go on a walk, but then again, I haven’t been raising my body temperature all afternoon by whining and drinking a well-insulated coffee either.

Me: Is there anyone else you can call?

Lady: Nooooooo, I don’t have my address book, and I don’t know anyone’s phone number.

Me: You can look it up online, or look it up in the phone book.

Lady: Noooo, I don’t think I could find anyone.

Me: Okay, well, you can call a cab.

Lady: I don’t have any money.

I should mention that all of these sentences she uttered were in the most annoying whine I think I’ve ever heard. The last word of ever sentence dragged out painfully until I cut her off and began speaking over it. I was waiting for her to employ some vibrato for added punch.

Me: Hmmm, I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to suggest.

Lady: It’s so COLD outside. I don’t think I can walk that far.

Me: Well, it’s 6:00. The sun is going down and it’s only going to get colder.

Lady: *gasp* Noooooooo. Can I use the computer again?

Then she plopped her butt down in front of the computer for another hour, blasting music into her headphones, watching videos online. At 7 she simply slipped out, no more whining, no words to anyone.

I thought the weirdness had left with her when another young woman walked up to me and asked why her money wasn’t coming out of the change machine.

I said, “Um, we don’t have a change machine. I think you put your money in the copier.”

Copier? What copier? She was so clueless, she didn’t realize the big machine she leaned over to put the money in the “change machine” was in fact the copier that the machine was accepting money for. I suggested she either hit the print button and get a piece of white paper and 90¢ change, or she talk to Circ about possibly getting a refund. She nodded and kept walking past me.

Incredulously, I shouted to her, “Ma’am, your dollar is in the machine still, right? You’re going to want to go over and take care of that now, otherwise someone might think that’s $1 in free copies for them, and then there’s nothing we’re going to be able to do to get your money back.”

She looked at me blankly, said, “Reeeaaly?” and I nodded and told her to go get her money.

Marina was right. We should’ve closed down the reference desk and gone for drinks. We should’ve continued making our list of people to stab. Which would’ve gotten too big and then we would’ve switched and made lists of people not to stab.

That would’ve been a short list.

It might have only had our own names on it.

Out of Office

For the next two weeks I will be on vacation at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, possibly also Badlands and any other National Parks I can hit en route to or from.

Have a good two weeks and I will be back in June. Wheeeeeee!

Replies

Microsoft Outlook should be sued for putting the Reply to All button next to the Reply button, in an easy to find, accessible place. Assholes set us up! If you click on Reply to All, a loud buzzer should sound and a neon orange pop-up should appear on your screen asking if you are a totally reckless lunatic who wants to make enemies, or if you really think the All recipients are interested in your reply. If you answer yes to either of these questions, another pop-up should appear and ask you if you’re on any medications, suffering from delusions of grandeur, or just stupid. Answers of “no” should then require a special series of math questions (like Gmail labs instituted) that you have to answer correctly to prove you are smart enough to decide and cogent enough to include pertinent information for your All group, and only then can you actually Reply to All. If Microsoft really cared about their customers, this is what Outlook would do.

Additionally, people who misuse the Reply to All button should be flogged and whipped in public for their indiscretion. By their boss. And then docked a day’s pay. And this should be a global law. Screw off, Amnesty International! There are some instances of torture that are worthy!

Yesterday, a very sad email went out to thousands and thousands of employees who are part of our library system, self-defined in the following paragraph:

...is a consortium of over 650 academic, public, school, and special libraries in [4 counties of Illinois]. It is one of nine multi-type Illinois library systems funded by yearly grants from the Illinois General Assembly and the office of Jesse White, the Secretary of State and State Librarian.

The email explained how little funding the State has doled out, how desperate things are in the system, and how they are all but shutting down at the end of June, running barely a skeleton crew for minimal services, which are also in jeopardy.

We all saw this letter and sighed heavily. They do so many things for the libraries in my neck of the woods that losing them would be devastating. Not only do they run the van service for our Interlibrary Loan, but our health insurance is administered through them, so we’re terrified what kind of implications this will have on our functionality as a reciprocating library, and how it’s going to impact our health care. This doesn’t even touch on many of the other services it offers, including the entertaining continuing education seminars/classes we often attend, where we laugh and shudder at the weirdos in our field.

So, none of us is sure where the mailing list came from. Perhaps anyone who has ever taken a course through the system and registered their email address was a recipient. Regardless, once the email went out, many others assumed they were special, had received this email from the director of the library system personally, and then forwarded it on as well. Many of us received the initial letter, somberly read it, and then continued receiving it from others through forwards for the remainder of the evening.

Sigh...

Okay, that’s bad enough, but today started the replies to all (meaning all the staff members in all the libraries in four counties, I should remind you) from various recipients that went on and on about how sad they were about the losses.

Lovely. Thanks. We’re all sad. Glad you felt the need to share it with every-fucking-one, but whatever. That’s part of why we laugh at you in the classes, you nitwits. Reply to sender only, please!

After a few hours of monotonous, repetitive letters of sorrow being emailed out to every-fucking-one on the list by Repliers to All, the hostile remove-me-from-your-listers started hitting Reply to All as well. So now, I’m in the middle of a shitstorm of idiots who were pissed to be receiving the heartfelt letters of sorrow, and are now Replying to All to be removed from the list because of the abusers of the Reply to All.

Seriously?! You do NOT need to hit Reply to All when you are asking to be removed from future Reply to All notifications.
GAH!

Now, I’m not going to reveal my font snobbery and complain that the director of the consortium sent out this email in Comic Sans, because that would be petty. I am also not going to comment on the long-winded explanations about why some of these people are baffled as to how they got on this list because I quit reading them. What I’m amazed with is the fact that 27 have arrived in my Inbox thus far, a few in my spam, some surely pre-filtered before they even reach me, and then there was someone who used the opportunity to forward their own professional agenda to this list. WTF, people? If you’re the director of a huge consortium and you’re sending out a massive email to thousands and thousands of people, filter the list so that it’s not reusable by every moron who receives it! Maybe everyone who knows how to do this was already laid off. I don’t know. But goddammit, this is getting ridiculous. And it wouldn’t be ridiculous if people weren’t booger-eating morons! Or as Arms likes to say, “window-lickers on the short bus”.

So, while I’m at work and I’m dealing with the neanderthals who can’t enter their computer reservation number because they don’t know about the Num Lock key, or the folks who can’t figure out how to scan their barcode using a scanner (holding anything but the barcode up to the scanner), I’m going to say they’re less infuriating today than the people who work in my field.

And as if to top it all off with an even bigger irritation, someone just Replied to All to stop sending out Replies to All about wanting to be removed from the list because this is a serious situation we’re talking about here. As if this serious situation warranted thousands of respondents to clutter my inbox with identical emails of woe. Shut the fuck up, people!

Aaaaaaand, now people are Replying to All in support of the whiner who wants people to stop whining in their Replies to All.

Sigh... these are not my people.

The bottom line here is, it’s not going to change. Why does our library system deserve money the state doesn’t have more so than the schools? More so than any other organization they owe? My local school system is owed $1.5 million. There are school systems doing mass layoffs in anticipation of not receiving any state funding next year and trying to stay afloat. Fundraising has become essential for organizations like ours. We have to learn to adapt and survive any way we can, and writing our politicians, buying T-shirts, and singing Kumbaya around a bonfire (funded by donations and not the state) is not going to save anything. Despite what the idiots who are Replying to All think, this is not exclusive to Illinois. Get over yourself, folks. And quit using my Inbox as your soapbox! Frankly, if the Powers That Be came to me and asked if $2 million should be paid to our public schools or our library consortium, I’m going to be hard-pressed not to say the schools. While I think this is all quite sad, mainly the loss of jobs in this terrible market, I really don’t understand why so many people would rather whine about it en masse than pick ourselves back up and figure out a way to subsidize.

If we could sue Microsoft for putting together Outlook without all of the pitfalls attached to the Reply to All button as there should have been, we could solve many of these problems.

Wisdom In the Stacks

Marina: I can’t find a shallow little divided dish for under my monitor to put my rubber bands and paper clips in. You know? They’re all these big things with pen holders attached, and I don’t want that.

Me: Hmmm, maybe a little baby food divider dish?

Marina: I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe.

Me: Where did you look?

Marina: Target. I went to MULTIPLE Targets.

Me: Try Office Max. Or, of course, Amazon.

Marina: Yeah, I SHOULD try Amazon. Amazon has everything!

Me: You know, yesterday I had a woman come in and she insisted there was this book, by this author, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I suggested the title was wrong, the author was wrong, etc., and she swore up and down that it was all right. I checked Amazon and there was no such creature, so I said to her, “Ma’am, Amazon doesn’t have it listed so it’s pretty much not out there.”

Marina: I know! What did we do before Amazon?

Me: We wasted all our life looking for stuff all over the place and overpaying!

Marina: That’s right! If it’s not on Amazon, you’re just out of luck, lady.

Me: Exactly! AA! MUH! ZON! C’mon, people. There is nothing more definitive. Have you not heard of Amazon? Have you not used Amazon? Sit down. I will show you the way to enlightenment.

Marina: I have a friend who is waiting for the day when he can order all his groceries from Amazon and they’ll just show up automatically every month and charge his credit card.

Me: That is probably not too far off.

Marina: You can already do it with some things.

Me: That’s right. Because it’s Amazon. AA! MUH! ZON! Get with it.

* * *

Last night I had the following conversation with my coworker.

Me: Oh, all that drilling in Circ is them putting up the AED device on the wall. I forgot to mention.

Coworker: The what?

Me: AED. You know? With the paddles? CLEAR! [holding hands like the paddles] Ka-chunk! A defibrillator.

Coworker: Hahaha, ka-chunk! Sounds scary.

Me: Oh, it is!

Coworker: Hey, did you see the pictures of the people who won the Ugly Shirt Contest?

Me: Yeah.

Coworker: They weren’t that ugly!

Last week the Sunshine Committee sponsored an Ugly Shirt Contest, and being the Gloomy Committee, I wore a plain, nondescript coral shirt and didn’t participate. There weren’t many participants, and when the winners were announced with a photo accompanyment, we all scratched out heads because the ugly shirts weren’t so ugly after all. Well, one one heinous, but that’s because it was her husband’s shirt.

Me: I think a lack of participants kinda guaranteed that whatever these people wore, they were going to win.

Coworker: Well, that makes more sense. What did they win?

Me: I... I don’t remember. Maybe they won a free Jeans Day pass. Or a restaurant gift card. Something like that.

Coworker: So, speaking of which, this policy on wearing jeans on Friday, is that for real?

Me: Yeah, I hate it. I worked a Friday recently and was going out after, so I didn’t want to have to change, and I paid the $1 to be able to wear jeans on Friday. Sigh...

Coworker: OHMYGOD, I would never pay a buck to be able to wear jeans to work! Is anyone else doing this?

Me: Yeah, that’s what got me. I paid my $1 and [clerk] took my cash, and she too was wearing jeans, and had paid her dollar. Marina did the same. I was really hoping I’d be the only one stupid enough to do it so after a month or two they’d scrap the $1 charge because no one was paying it. But, dammit, people are paying it!

Coworker: What would they do if I wore jeans and didn’t pay my $1?

Me: Well, that’s part of the dress code. You’d be considered insubordinate then.

Coworker: Are they going to write me up?

Me: Maybe they’ll send you home and make you change! WOOHOO!

Coworker: Maybe they’ll hit me with the paddles -- KA-CHUNK -- knock me out, and I’ll wake up a while later and my jeans will be gone. Instead I’ll have on someone else’s ugly pants.

Me: Maybe you’ll win for Ugly Pants Day then!

Coworker: Maybe I’ll just pay my dollar.

Dear Patrons

Thank you for redeeming yourselves.

Sometimes I have no idea why you do what you do, where you hide your values, and why you bother with a library at all. Sometimes I wish you'd spend less time complaining about things that can't be changed (fines, rules, etc.) and put a little effort into using all the free services we offer so that you see where your money goes. Sometimes I wish you all just wouldn't come in at all.

We have awesome programs, some of which cost a lot of money, and no matter how much we hype it and how much support the public shows, you often just don't come to the program itself. We put up heart-felt, elaborate displays to help you realize just how many useful and entertaining items we have just for you, and you ignore them all. We give ourselves near aneurysms trying to concoct ways to appease you, to serve you, to provide you with material, information and tools you need, and you destroy or scoff at them. It gets discouraging. It wears on the soul. I frequently am asked by coworkers if this idea or that idea will fly around here and I inevitably answer, "I have no idea what these people want." This isn't always true, of course. Sometimes I, like everyone else here, hit the nail on the head, but we have no clue as to why often. It's a crap shoot. We try so hard to bring you the The Goods, and frequently we are left feeling like you think it's The Shit.

My recent displays included genealogy, foods to improve your health, crafts, DIY home improvements, job searching online, and Darwin/evolution. You checked out nearly nothing on any of them, leaving me feeling a lot like nothing I do is worthwhile to you. It's depressing.

But, as I said in my opening, you have been redeemed.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, dear patrons. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for raiding and emptying my Memorial Day display. I have no idea if it was one person or a smattering of people, but walking in today and finding my display nearly empty of books makes me feel like you are decent folks worthy of my efforts. Good job checking out those books! I hope they bring you the emotions you expect and then some. I hope you are as proud of yourselves as I am of you. And mostly, I'm thankful that we share one value in common, and that is a reverence for those who have served.

Now I can go on working here, giving you my best, because if nothing else, I know we see eye-to-eye on one issue and that will be enough to carry me for a bit. So, thanks for that.

Much Love,
Happy Villain

Twizzler Update

Under the strictest, most scientific of conditions, Ann and I conducted experiments at Applebee's on Friday night and have the following to report on the Twizzler Straw issue:

• Long Island iced teas are marvelous sipped through a Twizzler.

• Frozen strawberry daiquiris are impossible to sip through a Twizzler, as it is too narrow and the end with the daiquiri plugs instantly, causing the center of the Twizzler to collapse and the sucker's head to implode. Tried repeatedly, this failed every time. Additionally, the frozen drink rendered the Twizzler inedible as it was far too hard to chew, despite animated faces and slightly-inebriated gusto.

Thankfully, I have a brilliant brother who has suggested the best possible solution to the Twizzler Straw problem: Red Vines.

Red Vines are an alternate brand to Twizzlers, and though their consistency is slightly different and they have a mellower, less licorice-y taste, they are much larger and have a wider hole in the center.

A large package of Red Vines was purchased by this scientist and three Mike's Hard Berry wine coolers are chilling at the moment. If Red Vines serve well with Mike's magical drinks of happiness, I will dare to give the daiquiri another shot.

Anyone else conducting experiments of this type are encouraged to report their findings herein.

Carry on with your straw experimentation.