Just Say No

Anyone who has ever worked in a library knows that they are really funny places to work. Seriously! I have worked in a library in some way or fashion, on and off, since I was 15. When you have worked in a free public building that long...you have seen some stuff.

It is a known fact that there are some quirky people that hang out in libraries...even more than just the librarians themselves. (I am getting cyber glares from my librarian friends...) Because you see them so often, some patrons have developed nick names that all the librarians can recognize them by.

Names like: “Tube Sock Man”, “Perfume Man”, “Building a Bomb in his Mothers Basement Guy”*, “Sleazy Mobster Guy,” and "I want to be your friend Guy” (He is the one that used to yell "I just wanted to be your friend" whenever I would leave the room he was sitting in).

Ahhh yes, Libraries tend to have all sorts of strange people convene in their reading rooms. In fact once, when I was in high school working at a library, a man wrapped himself in toilet paper, naked, and ran through the library. That was “nude mummy guy.”

There is a story here. One night when I was working “Creepy Serial Killer Guy”** was bleeding on his arm and asked me for a Band-Aid. I went out back to get him one, when I came back, he said his hands weren’t working right and could I put it on him…

Now, I like to think of myself as a really nice person...for the most part... But with being nice, and trying to always think about others first, I have developed this problem where I have a hard time saying no. Jamie may whole heartedly disagree with this, but in the setting that I am discussing, I tend to fall off the fence onto the "lets not make waves" side rather than the "Have a freaking back bone Leia, side"

So what did I do? I did it.

YEAH I KNOW…I itched the rest of the night feeling like something was crawling all over me I was so grossed out. There wasn’t enough antibacterial in the world when I got home to cure my problem… I have GOT to learn to say no! If not to a creepy bleeding dude in the library than to who???? Where does it end?


* This guy had a copy of a Chemistry text book out for at least one year…and was very nervous when you talked about fertilizers…(No Leila it isn’t who you think it is)

**I am going to say that I don’t know for sure that he is a serial killer, but he is one of those people that the minute he looks at you, you want to flee like the little screaming child you know you are!

Since I Work in a Library...

I found this of interest...

Hey Steph and Leila, perhaps a new job for Carol and Jill? Get them to be bounty hunters on the side! Gotta love the mug shot, because you know, she is just so remorseful...

Things That Make You...

Want to push a stack of books onto someones foot and say "OH, whoops, I didn't see you there!"


1: Leila: "The sit down computers are all being used right now, you can have a stand up one"

Extremely Obnoxious Patron (EOP) "So I can't use one?"

Leila: "I am sorry all the computers are being used right now, it will be 45 minutes or so until one is free"

EOP: "So I have to use these? I have been shopping on my feet all day, I am tired."

Leila: "I am sorry all the computers are currently being used you will have to use a stand up one"

EOP: "So I can't use one?"

I am still not sure when this line of questioning ended...probably when Leila went into the back to drown herself in herbal popcorn to keep from punching the lady in the face.

2: Sneeze Wheeze, wipe your nose with your hand and then hand the book to me with the SAME hand...

Yes, THANK YOU for introducing the black plague to me and my family, when it kills me I will haunt you from the grave.


3. Again with the EOP...So, Um, do you think if you hit that key harder it will work better???

Shhhhh We are in the Library

If an 18 month old kid is lying on the floor crying and saying "I'm Tired, I want to go home" in the library what would be the correct response?

"Ok I know it is late, and the library is almost closing, I can get a book later and you are screaming really loud in the library so let’s just call it a day"?

OR

"I don’t know why you can't stand up and let me look for my book.” Meaning: Surely the librarians aren't minding your incessant screaming and disconcerting lying on the floor whining about being tired at 8 at night? I mean really, you are big enough at 18 months old to act right…now, you lay on the floor there and scream, but just not too loud so that I can continue to look for my books. AND WIPE THOSE CIRCLES OUT FROM UNDER YOUR EYES….humph you are such a child!”

Yeah I didn’t think it should be he second one either, unfortunately the kids mom did...arrrrgggghhhhh

Just a Question

If you were going to get all mad at someone and get the balls to call them and yell at them....wouldn't you make sure you had the right person before you started your tirade on humanity?

Better yet, when they told you that you had not called the "Ho-bag" you intended, but rather the town library, wouldn't you stop and think it through?

Nope, that would just make too much sense. Last night while working my little shift at the town library, all innocently doing statistics and checking out books, minding my own business, doing the "stamping 2 weeks" thing...I get a phone call.

I say (in my ever so perky library phone voice) "Good Evening, Kennebunk Free Library, this is Leia speaking, can I help you?"

An apparently, violently jilted, patron started talking over me: "OH yeah right, I don't want to hear it, I don't want to hear it from you..."

I clear my throat, obviously taken aback by the seemingly angry patron, who must be pissed about having to renew a book or something, who is currently still exploding on the phone with various expletives and insults..."Excuse me? Um...this is the library..."

Violent Ho lady: "You know he told me you have been flashing it all over town, I don't want to hear it from you..."

Me: "Ummm...do you know you called the library?"

Phone line goes dead.

2 minutes later same person calls, Leila jumps to the phone,

Seemingly calm patron asks "Do you have a notary at your library?"

Leila: "Nope"

woman hangs up....I can only assume to go drown herself further in her Bourbon after realizing that she just yelled at a librarian for "flashing it all over town"...and then, face burning with the acknowledgment that they have caller ID....

We did not hear from her again last night.....