Lovely Patrons

This week's fun included but was not limited to:

He started yelling at me, waving printouts in my face, totally out of the blue. What was he upset about? He bought something online with his debit card. He had an email receipt for said purchase. His bank claims the transaction never took place. Somehow that's the library's problem because he used our computers to make his purchase. Then because we wouldn't fix it for him, for the rest of the day he refused to speak with us and just stood at the desk waving his arms around angrily whenever he wanted something.

She told me she needed me to do her homework for her. Why? Because she's partially deaf, has a learning disability, has had several strokes, cannot use a computer, and works 50-60 hours/week. It doesn't help that her assignment states that she should go to the public library for help accessing course materials online.

He's been a regular for years. He comes to the library every day at opening and leaves at closing. He photocopies numerous newspaper articles and prints out gazillions of weather and climate maps. He's friendly and polite and always pays for his printouts. It's weird that he spends so much time here, but we've never had any problems with him. Until this week when he started making sexual comments to another patron and showing her sexually explicit cartoons.

But my husband's got me beat for loveliest customer of the week (he owns a small specialty shop several blocks away from the library):

They call him "The Genius" because he's told them the professors at Big State University say he is one. He's got very long hair, which he wraps around his head like a ball of yarn and sticks a baseball cap on top of to keep it in place. He says Stalin's daughter used to live in this city. Her name is Stalina. She was causing all of the crime in the neighborhood she lived in by using her psychic powers on people. The Genius told the police this, but they didn't believe him. They only started listening to him after he saved the police chief's life. But Stalina moved out of the city and now lives in a neighboring county. She's still using her psychic powers, but now she's causing car crashes. She can no longer cause crime here because the KGB is located in Expensive City Neighborhood, and they also have psychic powers, which cancel out Stalina's now that she lives outside of the city.

It's hard to believe The Genius isn't a known library patron!

From Last Friday

A patron told me they should make a slapstick romantic comedy starring Brett Favre and Hillary Clinton.

Wha???

It's On, Are You?

Nice Lady: Can you help me get this? [holds up a piece of paper with a Web address on it]

Me: You want to look at that website?

NL: It's for a class.

Me: Okay, well you can choose any open computer and I can help you get to that website if you would like.

NL: Okay. [finds a computer and sits down] Do you have any paper? I want to write down what you tell me.

Me: Good idea. Let me go find some. [people's inability to print just the pages they want assures that we have a constant supply of scratch paper]

NL: This is for a class. What do I do?

Me: You get started by clicking on the Internet browser button. [points to it on the screen]

NL: Click on it?

Me: Yes, with the mouse. [points to the mouse]

NL: Let me write that down. [writes very, very slowly] This is for a class.

Me: Okay, you click on that gray box with the globe on it, the Internet browser button, with the mouse. [demonstrates moving the mouse]

NL: Don't I have to turn the computer on first?

Me: Errrr, it's already on...

Do You Want Some Lettuce?

I broke my normal rule of "don't accept food from patrons" today. The guy had a bag of organic, home-grown lettuce, and he needed to get rid of it before it went bad. Apparently his garden overfloweth with produce.

And then he told me he's seen me before, and that I must have been working here for 10 years or so (try 4). Although it does kind of feel like 10 sometimes...

I didn't tell him that I'm going to feed the lettuce to my pet guinea pigs.