The Driving Insane

One night the Asian guard showed me a copy of a local free-paper that had printed the names, addresses and photos of all the registered sex offenders in our town. He pointed to one picture and said that guy worked at a bowling alley he had been assigned to earlier in the week.

The guard firmly believed the "offender's" claim that he had been falsely accused and had never even been tried or convicted for a sex crime. Someone just put his picture on there for meanness. I could not get it through the guard's head that the Megan's Law database was only for *convicted* offenders. I tried to explain that sure, once in awhile someone is probably falsely convicted, but the odds are slim. Very slim.

Exciting day at the library! I finally saw the puppet guy. Unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to talk to him. Or actually, I should say I was not able to talk to the puppet, because all interactions with the duo have to be addressed to the puppet. When I saw them, they had selected several CDs for their listening pleasure and were perusing the audio books.

Just for the sake of the visual image, the puppet companion (a monkey, I think) was at least three feet in length. The guy carried it around at the same height as his own head with his hand ready to operate the mouth should either of them need to speak. When he wasn't picking items off the shelf, he held his free arm under the legs so that the puppet was supported in a comfortable sitting position.

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Courtesy laugh of the day

Customer: "I thought crimson was a red color."
Me: huh?
Customer: "This movie says 'Crimson Coal'. That's confusing."
Me: [courtesy laugh that says, 'Ok, whatever.']


Also: Numerous courtesy laughs to the guard of Asian origin who's jokes I can never understand much less "get."

We have this lady who predictably saunters in near closing and then needs excessive amounts of help accomplishing her research and internet surfing. Sure enough, one hour and fifteen minutes before closing she drifts in. I'm sure we will have to kick her out after the final closing announcement. As usual.

How often does someone actually "sidle" up to you? A creapy guy with clip-on shades attached to his spectacles sidled up to me and said, "I don't suppose you have a weight scale?"

Now why the heck would I have one of those?

The Conspiracy Theorist's continued research into the assasination of JFK has led him to begin investigating Noah's Ark and its final resting place on Mount Ararat.

We were approached by an older lady wearing a straw hat, striped t-shirt and white gloves mid-way to her elbows.

She asked my co-worker: "I know 'Coeur' means heart, but what does 'Alene' mean?"

Him: Alene...heart of Alene.

Her: Well thanks. Now I know about as much as I did before.

Him: I guess you just need to find out who Alene was. Is there a specific reason you need to know?

Her: I need to know.

[Later he looked online and found some info that said it meant "Heart of the awl."]

I should have known it was an evil harbinger for the day when going 80 in the fast lane was about 15 mph too slow and we kept getting tailgated...

Lots of anxious, needy people today.

"I'm looking for a book on a pacific breed of dog...on one dog only. It's a Pomeranian."

Lady complains that she got a sex website and doesn't know how to get out of it. [uh, click the "x"?] Then she wants to know why she went there in the first place because she was trying to get on CraigsList.com. [Try craigslist.org.]

A doctor (!?!) came in to our public library and asked my coworker for a book on interpretting MRIs. So...what exactly do they teach you in med school, and did you use the public library for your homework assigments there?

A patron informed us that he had self-diagnosed himself as having fibro myalgia. He was researching a medication that might help his condition.

The security guard "warned" us that his mother had made him a batch of his favorite eggplant curry and he could feel it coming out his pores. He wasn't kidding. I could smell him from five feet away. And it wasn't exactly pleasant.

A lady asked me why the book she wanted was not available to check out. I told her it was on order. She asked, "What does that mean?"

Now we have a lady trying to get us to tell her where to buy a Dell computer, how much it will cost, what store to get it at, how to use the internet, what Windows is, where to find the 800 number for Dell, what stores sell Dell, how cheap they are, ad.infinitum. Then she overheard another patron telling us he used to own his own computer store, so now she is grilling him. Should she get a laptop or not? What is a computer doing when it is sleeping? Can't she plug it in? I'm feeling exhausted. She said, "See, I took a computer class here [actually just a short guide to logging on to our computers in the library], but it's been a month and I don't remember how to do it anymore, so I think I just need to buy a computer so I won't forget how to do it. Everybody says I should get a Dell laptop." Then: "She told me how to come over here and sign up for a computer. I don't know how to do this."

Boy, I sure feel sorry for the Dell tech support people. That job has to be
infinitesimally worse than reference librarian.

A guy with an uncomfortably intense gaze and headphones asked for Norse mythology. As I attempted to find him something at our branch he turned his headphones up really loud.

Computer lady is back again, this time wanting some videos on improving her singing voice.

Resident Perv wants to know the Dewey Decimal number for knots.