Address Unkown...Return To Sender

Our Summer Reading program is in full swing. I've noticed that a lot of our teens and tweens lack certain basic skills and knowledge that I believe to be an essential part of well...being.

The most disturbing lack of knowledge that some of these kids are exhibiting is that they couldn't tell me where they lived or how they could be reached by phone. Ummm...you know that would be their home address and home phone number. I'm shocked at how many of these kids don't know their own freakin' address. I mean come on people! I learned that in kindergarten. I had one teen who needed help with the "big" words in her address (Eisenhower). Come on! Eisenhower was a president of the United States of America. Their are just some things that kids should just...know...especially by their teens. I am so glad I will not be reproducing. I wouldn't want my nonexistent kid to have to deal with this type of peer.

The Absolutely Fabulous and Flesh Art

There are some patrons that you just want slap upside the head for lack of brains and originality. I was approached by a young woman who wanted of all things a tattoo book. We have books on the history and culture of tattooing both modern and ancient but she didn't want that oh no... She wanted a book with pictures of tattoo's. She wanted a catalog of tat's. I mean really. Could some be more unoriginal. I'm all for those people who want to suffer for their art. I mean it's a free country and all, if you want to pay someone a crap load of cash to take an ink filled needle which they will then use to pierce your body with "art" great. After the infection abates and the scabs flake off you will have a permanent body art. Congratulations. Although I don't think I could do it. What if I got tired of the image? Worse yet what if the image got warped as I aged. I mean I liked unicorns and dragons as a teen and if I could afford to get them tattooed across my...well whatever... by the time I got to my 40's I doubt you could tell which one was the dragon and which the unicorn. What if the image no longer pertained to who I am today? Old boyfriends name? Ick. This girl just wanted to copy someone else's artwork because she didn't have the originality to figure out what she wanted. I really dislike having to deal with the Edina and Patsy's of the world. (Absolutely Fabulous 1990's BBC sitcom) I can not stand those women who buy, adorn, shave, alter their physical being to a extreme extent because it's a fad.

Reference Questions We Love To Hate

I've seem to be attracting patrons that like to give the staff those reference questions we love to hate.



Some of our Favorites are:



1. Do you have a book on Betty Rose? (Betsy Ross)



2. I need a Notary Repulican book! ( Notary Public)



3. I want a Bibliography. (Biography)



4. I need an autobiography. (the patron really wants a biography)





If these reference questions resembled fictional characters I'd say they would be Petuna and Vernon Dursley from Harry Potter.

Definition of Charity....

char·i·ty (chār'ĭ-tē)
n. pl. char·i·ties

1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.

2. Something given to help the needy; alms.

3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.


The other day I had a mother and her daughter come into the library. The daughter was looking to do some community service hours. Of course daughter had informed be that it had to be done like, YESTERDAY. I informed her that I would not be able to help her and referred to the closest charitable organization. They both wanted to know what the word charitable meant.

I mean come on.

Really?

Mister Sixteen and the killing of TIME

Most of the time community service workers (individuals paying a debt to society rather than paying a fine with cold, hard, cash) get a bad reputation for being difficult to work with. I've found that to be not true. I've trained some great community service workers and they've been wonderful additions to our staff.

Typically to volunteer people will have to fill out an application and attend a volunteer orientation. If a potential volunteer can get through that (it's not like it's taking the SAT's for Cripes sake) then the person aught to be a decent volunteer.

However that's not always the case. This guy saunters into one of my orientations 20 minutes late and I knew, just knew, this guy was going to be trouble. He hands me his application, I look it over and notice that he didn't sign it. I ask him how old he is, wanting to make sure he's over 14 years of age and then ask him to sign his application. He looks at me dully and puts the number 16 where his signature goes. After orientation I arrange a day and time for him to come in for training. Later in the day I call his house because I need to change the day and time due to a conflicting appointment and speak to his mom. According to mommy dearest she was going to contact me anyway regarding his training schedule because of the time of day. I guess her precious baby boy can't focus so early in the morning and that TEN THIRTY in the morning would be too early. WTF! I can't believe I didn't nip that in the bud right then. However I have to follow through and give him a fighting chance. I arranged for an afternoon training time so he could "focus" and paired him with Reiko as his trainer. Mister Sixteen wanders in...late...and Reiko promptly starts him with Adult Fiction. Adult Fiction is pretty darn easy. Shelvers arrange the books in alphabetical order by authors last name. It's the a...b...c...'s for cripes sake. This guy goes through and stuffs bunches of books on his cart in the general area and says he's done. When we correct him he says dude I'm just killing time....well I said you're not killing time here. Then I found out that he's already been kicked out of the Charitable organization up the street. What a loser...

Salamander Man Strikes Out

After a reference desk shift change with Reiko - Salamander Man somehow signs himself off the computer he's using and gets super pissed. From what I understand Salamander man used foul language and obscene gestures to illustrate his impatience and frustration. Poor Reiko, she was very close to calling the cops. Salamander Man was out of control and not dealing with reality. Earlier when he was getting a library card, one of our circ staff returned a slip of paper that fell out of his wallet and he thought she'd given him her phone number. Ewww... He's like 70 something and she's 24. Then there's whole Salamander Thing he's got going on and none of us are into amphibians....

Demented Miss D Diversifies

The Demented Miss D has decided that she needs to learn a few new tricks. During the Summer the Branch catches up on a lot of tasks that we can't get to during the school year. Which includes recovering books. Miss D was determined to learn how to cover books and asked Penelope to show her how. Miss Penelope convinces Miss D that she really needs picture book labels made instead of books covered. Which is true. However Miss D is not capable of covering books and is capable of using a rubber stamp and ink pad... sometimes barely. Miss Penelope carefully instructs Miss D in the stamping of her picture book labels. I think that sometimes Miss D can only retain a small portion of instructions or the instructions degrade once they've reached her brain. Miss Penelope wanted 4 sheets of labels stamped with each letter of the alphabet which would make approximately 60 labels for each letter in the alphabet. Miss D stamped six hundred and eighty....A's.

Salamander Man and his teeny, tiny attention span

This morning has been pretty quiet. This is unexpected for a Saturday especially since it's 103 degrees outside. I usually expect more people to take advantage of our morgue like air conditioning. So I was feeling pretty good about today until this patron walks in. I shall call him Salamander Man because that's what he reminds me of. Salamander man wants to use the computer, in fact he is set on using the computer to renew his registration. He's even gotten a library card. yea. The first bit of information he has to give me is the fact that he's not been in a library since he was 15. I quickly do the math based on his estimated age and realize it must have been in the early fifties. Holy Crap. So, I am prepared show him how to log on to the computer knowing that he's probably hasn't had that much experience. Nothing in the world could have prepared me for this guy. I start off with simple instructions which my six year old nephew could follow. With this guy it's like herding hamsters. He doesn't even know what a mouse is. (okay I can kind of understand that because he's well....old.) I also have to repeat everything several times because he can't seem to focus. I inform Salamander Man that his PIN number is the last four digits of phone number and he draws a blank. I asked him what phone number he put on his application. Still he draws a blank. Come on even my six year old nephew knows his phone number. This whole fiasco has taken up 30 minutes of my time and finally I give up and make the registration for him. I actually make him look at my hand while I use the mouse so he (hopefully) figures out how to left click on links. My deranged poodles have a longer attention span than this guy. I suggested that he might, just might, want to just call and make an appointment at the DMV...

The King of Dicks and his Rocket Man

The King of Dicks excels at being confrontational. Somewhere past middle age but yet to achieve true senior citizen status he appears to be a clean cut normal looking guy. Appearances however can be sooo deceiving. This guy has issues. He hates using our express check out and when he must use it does so with barely suppressed violence. Poor express check out machine...it doesn't deserve such abuse. He hates the staff at large. None of the staff can do anything fast enough or good enough for him. Once or twice he's actually forgot to return a book and instead of looking at home for it insists that he returned it and it's our fault. He won't even consider the remote possibility that he could possibly be mistaken. He always has this attitude of barely suppressed rage. I am of the opinion that The Dick King is just looking for a strong woman...perhaps with a whip and lots of leather? The staff usually suffers with the knowledge that as soon as we help him he'll be out of our hair. However, Penelope had had enough one day and gave him a big old helping of tit for tat. If our branch manager had actually been in the branch, like doing his job, Penelope would have probably been dust. However she has endeared herself to many of the staff when she gave the Dick King his just deserts. It's not so much what was said but how she said it. She used a very venomous and dominant tone. After that he's been a bit more pleasant especially to Penelope. Perhaps Miss Penelope has made a conquest???



The King of Dicks came in today wanting to know where our current copy of "Rocket Man" was. I asked him if it was a comedy and he said "No." with this sour look on his face. He said the sequel to "Rocket Man" just came out. It took me awhile but I convinced him that the movie he was looking for was "Iron Man" with Robert Downey Jr. - Freakin' idiot.

Eyebrow Girl and the Crack of Doom

Today Eyebrow Girl sauntered in with the briefest pair of denim shorts I have ever and I mean ever seen. The wisp of denim barely covered the middle portion of her butt. Leaving way to much crack showing above the flimsy excuse for a garment and a copious amount of cheek hanging out. Eyebrow Girl sat down at a table and it looked like she was naked from the waist down. Not too mention the butt cleavage. Ewww... She finished her ensemble with a wrap around white strapless top that screamed "hooker!" Patrons just stopped and stared. It took all I had to ask her to cover up. There's only so much bare white oozing flesh that people should be exposed to.