Strange Things…

One hears on answering machines while calling holds:

“You reached the Lone Ranger… Hi Ho Silver - AWAY!”

This was the entire message kimosabe.

Cold Storage

When last we left the salmon dinner it was resting comfortably in the coolness of the staff refrigerator. For all the effort the lady made to keep the fish from spoiling she made no effort to retrieve it before she left the building. When morning came and the staff returned to the Library in the fridge it sat just as it was the day before. Time to dispose of the biohazard we thought and proceeded to discard the much discussed salmon dinner…

Immediately upon opening the woman called to ask if she could get her beloved fish back, alas we had it no longer. She spoke with the same Circulation Clerk who I previously thought witnessed her rummaging through our fridge, however, I was mistaken by what I had heard yesterday. The real story is even more excellent than I previously disclosed!

Apparently, the lady started to go behind the Circulation Desk but was stopped by the Circ. Clerk who told her to see the Clerk in the Children’s Department (the one who I thought witnessed the rummaging and routing) and told her that she would put the salmon dinner in our refrigerator for her… Which she did, then she called to say that she wasn’t amused. - Ha! So instead of seeing some random woman creeping around the staff area with fish in hand, a staff member actually had another staff member carry this salmon dinner to said fridge and put it in cold storage for the woman… As if she was her personal servant. LMAO!!

Dismayed over the final resting place of the salmon dinner the woman ended her call. Although brokenhearted she said that she would return.

Salmon Dinner

First let me just say, “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

OK, now that I got that out of my system, allow me to tell you the tale of the salmon dinner. A woman dropped by the Library today who intended to stay a while, only she had a problem. She had just finished eating a salmon dinner at a very nice restaurant nearby and didn’t want the leftovers to spoil. What to do? Eureka! She had the idea to ask the Circulation staff if we might have a refrigerator that she could store it in while she utilized all the Library has to offer.

The patron told the Circ. Clerk that if she forgot it, it would be OK for someone on the Library staff to eat the salmon dinner, as she wouldn’t want it to go to waste because it was simply scrumptious. So the Clerk told the woman to go into the staff office and help herself…

LOL!

The woman promptly headed into our Staff Lounge where another Circ. Clerk just happened to be taking her break. From what I understand she was like, “Um… Who are you? And What are you doing in our refrigerator?” Which, of course, prompted the patron to retell the tale of her salmon dinner all over again including the part where the Clerk could have it if she forgot about it later. Anyway, after the salmon dinner was safely tucked away in cold storage the Circ. Clerk in the Staff Lounge called the Circulation Desk and simply said, “I am not amused.”

LMAO!! I only wish that I was there to see the look on the Clerk’s face when this random woman began routing around in our fridge… Instant classic.

Hot Hot Heat

It’s August weather here. We’ve been running around 95° with about 40% humidity for the last few days. It’s hot! It’s so hot that Space Ace is now sporting a Mohawk.

I nearly pissed myself when he removed his hat today… LMAO!!

Common / People

Thanks Gawker!

More Lost Than Found

Today we found an 18oz. jar of creamy peanut butter while organizing the magazine reading area. I immediately asked my coworker if she saw anyone walking around with a loaf of bread?

She laughed…

More Search Term Fun

Ever since I posted that I’m a big fan of Battlestar Galactica and Katee Sackhoff I’ve been getting a lot of hits based on BSG’s actors/characters… As well as a healthy sampling of some of the same old weirdness. The good new is that people seem to be searching a lot less for naked pictures of Debbie Gibson. Now, let’s have a look at the terms that people used to hit this blog today:

grace park
fun in the library
grace park complex - The Asian plague perhaps?
the library
tricia helfer
katee sackhoff - [Sigh]
humorous quiet signs for libraries - I’ve created a few.
kara thrace+battlestar+wallpaper - Kudos on your sophisticated search string!
battlestar galactica wallpaper
porn man - Has been suspiciously absent as of late.
katee sackhoff sexy - Damn right she is!
the uses of the library - Sleeping, bathing, learaning, etc…
galactica wallpaper
grace park images
battlestar galactica wallpapers
galactica
athena galactica
amazing nature wallapapers
naked cylon tricia - To each his/her own
battlestar galactica
warrior wallpaper
bsg - Word.
boomer from battlestar naked
fucking librarian - Yes.
“top 10 library” index
battlestar galactica porn - A little toaster on toaster action maybe?
hot librarian game - If you find one, let me know.
battlestar six
cylons + battlestar + park
tricia helfer naked
i really didn’t realize the librarians w - W what?
sexy bitch wallpaper - Please be more specific.
basics scientology lectures for sale - Be afraid, be very afraid.
batgirl porn - Kinky.
tricia
kara thrace
library humor - You found it!
battlestar pegasus
wordpress library
razor battlestar
man in pain porn - You are one sick fuck.
grace park photos
sexy asian girls - Yep… It’s definitely the Asian plague.
keith and kevin porn - I don’t even want to know.
grace park naked
zombie librarian - Aren’t we all
kara ’starbuck’ thrace
library signage
library themed restaurant - I prefer the Library Bar myself.
grace park, boomer

A Splendid Day

Today was an absolutely picture perfect day….

The kind of day when some people apparently think, “It’s SO beautiful that I think I’m going to get totally shithoused and visit the library so that I can work on my resume, and then maybe apply for some jobs!” Or it was in the case of one middle-aged guy wearing a “Venice Beach” T-Shirt who reeked of alcohol anyway. Now, I wouldn’t be down on this sort of thing on the fly, however, this guy has come in on at least four or five other occasions that I can think of and each time he oozes 100 proof so that anyone within a five foot radius is immediately aware of his revelry… Or whatever.

Nothing good can come of this.

No Peace

I got no sleep whatsoever last night due to the bad behavior of my new neighbors. First a little background on them, they are two 20ish guys who moved in recently next door. This is their first place away from home. Subsequently, they blast music until all hours and make general asses out of themselves singing, or I should write wailing away a la “Rock Band.”

A perfect example was a brutally rendered “Dead Or Alive” several weeks ago that prompted the downstairs neighbor to have little chat with them lest he call the police. My personal favorite was a strenuously tortured rendition of Sublime’s Doin’ Time: “…got this relationship, I love her so bad, but she treats me like shit…” I find this a tad more than a little annoying, but I let it go since they tend to listen to a lot of the same music I listen to. Also, I rarely go to bed before 12:30 or 1:00 so what does it matter to me? I figured that sooner or later someone with kids would have a few words with them and as I surmised this indeed did happen. This was good because it quelled them for several weeks. Then evening fell yesterday…

When I got home from work, I saw the dumbass leave his apartment as I opened my door. This forced me to acknowledge his existence. It got worse from there. Apparently they decided to have a little party last night. They managed to keep the music and talking to a reasonable level. Then, presumably after most revelers left the gathering sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 when I began to hear loud and erratic banging sounds.

Silence fell, only to be broken by loud banging on their door around 3:45… What fresh hell is this I wonder? Oh, it’s the police. It seems they are feigning death and do not acknowledge the presence of the law. This doesn’t work, and the police begin to call the building’s super for the key so that they can discern if someone did actually die in the apartment or what. Just then, the door opens.

As it turns out, it seems that the police received two calls, a noise complaint from downstairs, and a call from within the apartment itself. Interesting. From what I gather, one of their girlfriends called in a domestic dispute. She said that her boyfriend hit her with a bat or a golf club or some other blunt object. This explains the cops exclamation, “What happened to your head?” upon opening the door. But it doesn’t end there my good readers, it gets better… After getting bludgeoned, it seems that the girl stabbed her boyfriend in the leg. Of course, each denied all of this to the police when questioned. In fact, the girl even insisted that she didn’t make the call, to which the cop responded, “Let me see your phone.” Dumbasses!

Another choice nugget was overhearing one of the cops say, “I’m not going to find any more weed in this bag am I?” as they were walking down the hallway… In the end (5AMish now), they took one person away in a squad car, and gave another some kind of citation.

Folks, it’s going to be a long day today @ the Library, and this makes me exceptionally Woeful.

Wednesday Angst

A woman walks up to me at the Reference Desk babbling on and on about court and time and computers and Lord know what else… All without any salutation. I let her go on for a few minutes and say, “So what’s this about? You want a computer?” She responds in the affirmative and I tell her that she has computer 15. She asks about computer seven since no one is there and I explain that it probably has a reservation and that’s why the system assigned her computer 15. She walks over to the computers, checks computer seven and shouts, “It says it’s available!”

I tell her that she has a reservation on computer 15 which, incidentally, is just a few steps away. She begins babbling again and I say, “Would you prefer computer seven?” To which she responds, “Yes, I don’t have a lot of time and it’s closer.” I say, “OK, bring me your card again and I’ll log you onto seven.” I cancel her reservation on computer 15, make the new reservation and give her her card back. She walks back to computer seven and logs on. What I wanted to say was that if she just walked up to computer 15 without the song and dance routine she could have saved herself almost 10 minutes since all that walking back and forth and incoherent babbling was far more time consuming than walking directly up to computer 15 would have been.

… Sometimes I really am drowning in assholes.

Welcome To Earth

This is like freak week @ the Library. In the midst of it all Space Ace appears as the elevator doors open. He stands there making no effort to move suspiciously looking from the left to right as if to ask, “What strange place is this?” A moment later, the doors close and take him “elsewhere.” In the mean time, the police stop by to ask us if we have seen a man who is wearing a gray shirt and khaki pants? We informed the officer that we hadn’t seen him today. He told us to keep an eye open but not to approach the guy if we do see him. Instead we were instructed to immediately call the police as there is an APB out for his arrest. Apparently he’s overdue for a court ordered “psych evaluation.”

… I could have pointed out a few dozen others to the officer today who would have been adequate stand-ins. Take your pick officer, we have ADHD Anne over there. Psychosis Stew in the corner, PTSD Pete near the windows, and Space Ace riding the elevator up and down unsure what planet he’s on.

Stick a fork in me, I’m done. I am SO glad it’s a long weekend!

Nexus Of Abnormailty

I was telling a colleague about Space Ace’s revelations yesterday and she said that our plight is probably due to the Library’s proximity very near a homeless shelter, a train station, and numerous bars. She then informed me that a patron registered a complaint last night about a guy in the Men’s Room who was walking around on all fours…

I replied that we’re located right at the nexus of Freak St. and Insanity Blvd.

Have No Fear

Today nobody seemed to have any communication skills whatsoever. My nerves were frayed by noon. Capping off my day was visit from Space Ace who was in rare form like I’ve never seen him before. He stopped by the Reference Desk to ask if I could log into his email and finish posting some ads to Craigslist. We’ve been through this time and again with him explaining in great detail how this is done… Apparently to no avail.

I explain to him that we don’t get into anyone’s account and do anything. At this point he goes off on an extreme tangent explaining that his mind is “saturated” and that he’s operating on a “genius level.” Therefore, he has a hard time coping with simple things like submitting ads to Craigslist. He said that the trailer that he’s trying to sell was supposed to go to some general but he managed to get it instead because he has connections since he’s a Federal agent. However, every time he does something online (like posting to Craigslist) it gets intercepted by those trying to thwart what he’s doing.

Then he began talking about how he’s used to commanding men, large groups of men and that right now, he’s commanding a substantial contingent of men who are protecting us from an immanent alien invasion.

… As luck would have it I had to take a telephone call, so Space Ace made his way to one of our Internet computers and logged on… Doing what is anyone’s guess? I was very pleased that that it was nearly the end of my shift. I made the trek home and immediately poured myself a nice big glass of Cabernet Sauvignon. I just finished t… And it’s won’t be the last.

Printing Mi$hap

Today I had to help a patron with a printing problem. He accidentally queued up a print job that cost $92, 848. This is a new record that trounces the old one. Now, I’m not sure how this happened, because the guy who did it isn’t a dumbass. He was only trying to print out several copies of a 16 page PowerPoint presentation but it went badly awry. Long story short, I put him on a different computer and it printed no problem.

E-Reference… Maybe

What follows is a slightly modified transcript of a recent email reference query (names have been changed to protect privacy, and it has also been edited for brevity):

Patron logs on as “Susan”

Patron: Do you have old Dumbass High School Yearbooks?

Librarian: Hello Susan, this is Megan. We keep yearbooks in the Genealogy Department.

Patron: I do not live in Dumbass

Librarian: I see. Would you like us to research this and get back to you via email?

Patron: Sure

Librarian: OK, what’s your email address? And what year are you looking for?

Patron: I can be reached at whackadoo@wtf.net. I’m looking for 1965 or 1966. My father’s birthday is coming up and we’d like to make him a copy.

Librarian: That’s a wonderful idea!

Patron: Thanks much

Librarian: And you are Susan Doe?

Patron: Maybe

Patron: Why?

Patron: Whom am I speaking with?

Librarian: It’s customary and helpful to know who we’re assisting

Librarian: This is Megan Smith

Patron: OK thanks much

Librarian: Did you have any other questions today?

Patron: No thanks

Librarian: OK we’ll get back to you shortly

Librarian: Bye

So, I do the research and we do indeed have the yearbooks she needs. I send an email to tell her the good news, and she writes back asking if we have any copies for sale. Umm… NO! These are reference items that do not leave the building. Then I indicated that I could, however, photocopy the page(s) that depict her father and mail them to her since she lives in a neighboring State. But first, she needs to provide her father’s name so we know who we are looking for.

I’m still waiting to hear back.