Miss Information is annoyed by a conversation
Sometimes Miss Information presses the "repeat" button on her car's CD player. Sometimes she forgets to unpress the button. Eventually she clues in that the song has been going on for a very very long time.
Today a customer approached the reference desk. He wanted a specific book. It was a reference book. Miss Information explained to him that he could only use the book in the library, but that she would put him on the waiting list for a circulating copy which would arrive in a couple of weeks. Every day she has this exact conversation about 20 times. Today she had this same conversation 20 times with the
same customer.
Every time the conversation reached its logical conclusion, the man would ask the
exact same question again. Miss Information would repeat exactly what she had said 15 seconds earlier. She changed her inflection. She used synonyms. Nothing worked. She was practically reduced to tears. This is what hell is like. Having to have the same conversation over and over and over for all eternity.
Is it possible that the repeat button in the man's brain had been pressed? If so, is located somewhere Miss Information can get to it? She's willing to use force if necessary.
Miss Information is annoyed by a celebration
It hadn't exactly been a great weekend. First thing Saturday, she was driving her car on the perpetually under construction highway when a stone hit the windshield. Usually these things sound worse than they are and Miss Information has been peacefully co-existing with a stone chip for about 2 years now but no, this one looks like a little snowflakey, starbursty, spiderwebby thing and she's going to need to replace the whole damn thing. Bummer.
Then, the evil bitch counter woman at McDonald's refused to accept Miss Information's money. Admittedly it was counterfeit. Quite obviously counterfeit, too--wrong shape, wrong texture. (It
is the right colour, though.) But still not Miss Information's fault.
So she was bummed out before she even got to her niece's birthday party. There is nothing quite as depressing as being the only childless person in a room full of mummies. Unless the room in question is the Egyptian wing of the British museum in which case it's probably very isn't depressing whether or not you have children. Except for the knowledge that you're going to die and no one's going to fill a pyramid with bling and bury people alive in your memory. But back to the subject...
For most of the afternoon, there were 5 little girls at the party, two of them named Chloe. There was "baby" Chloe who was 2-years-old and there was "big" Chloe who was 2.5. Apparently a 3rd Chloe ("even bigger" Chloe) sent her regrets. Good thing, too because Miss Information couldn't tell the first two Chloes apart. She just started calling everyone Chloe--even the fathers. In the evening additional guests arrived and the Chloe to non-Chloe ratio approached normal levels again. It was too late, though--Miss Information's spirit was crushed.
The women at the party had no idea that conversations could be about things other than their children, leaving Miss Information to try to have intelligent exchanges with the little people...most of whom were under two and did not appreciate Miss Information's witty anecdotes. None of them could actually respond, because the extent of their vocabulary is the word "mama", and one of them spoke only French ("maman"), anyway.
Luckily the hostess of the party, Miss Information's sister, had "planned" the party in a very vague way: "What? Dinner? Oh, sure, there's a frozen lasagne, somewhere, I think, no I don't know how long it should cook for...be a dear and pop it in the oven?" (She was
such a control freak before the children came along.) All leaving Miss Information with many exciting kitchen chores to attend to.
Eventually the party wound down with the an obligatory arts and crafts session and a moonlight walk around the block. Miss Information opted out of the walk, choosing to stay behind, enjoying the tranquility of the backyard...all alone. But wait. What's that noise? Did someone else stay behind? It was getting pretty dark at that point and she couldn't see anyone...besides humans don't make those sounds. No, to her dismay she realized the party had been invaded by her arch nemesis species, raccoons--a whole herd, no, flock, no,
busload of them. She stumbled around in the near complete darkness trying to rescue the remaining food and presents from their evil furry hands. Bastards.
Soon, the other guests returned from their walk. Miss Information reported the incursion. Everyone ran for the safety of the house--leaving Miss Information to continue to fumble around in total darkness trying to save the possessions. She hates to seem bitter, but she really does think that somebody could have helped.
Miss Information has a question for the customers
Miss Information had a lovely onion-filled Sri Lankan lunch. Really now, how bad does her breath have to become before you people will just leave her the hell alone?
Miss Information is annoyed by fellow travellers
Miss Information is an evil bitch. She knows that no one cares about her petty annoyances what with the people dying on the street and all—but still, there are some things she simply must get off her chest.
She has just returned from a short road trip and she was, well, irritated by the behavior of her fellow motorists.
First, two lane highways are not that complicated. There is a driving lane and a passing lane. One is for
driving and one is used for
passing. It seems so obvious. Those people who drive slowly in the passing lane for miles and miles and miles are just ruining the fun for everyone else. She thinks this is self-explanatory, but the number of people who don’t appear to understand the basics is staggeringly large. Miss Information is
trying to get somewhere. Get the hell out of her way.
Second, if she believed in hell, Miss Information knows there would be a special place there for those people who drive on the shoulder or the breakdown lane when there’s a traffic jam. She wants these people to know that while one or two of them may be rushing off to save helpless kitty cats who are trapped in trees or something, the rest of them are just trying to get to McDonald’s before they give out the last Tinkerbell Happy Meal toy. Miss Information thinks these people are immoral scum-sucking, bottom-feeding bastards who think they’re more important than everyone else. What’s the problem? They were absent the day they taught “waiting your turn” at kindergarten? Everybody in the damn traffic has someplace they would rather be, so just get back in a proper lane and wait patiently like everyone else.
Lately Miss Information has noticed an annoying variation on this theme where a car in front of her cuts into the on ramp and pretends to be just coming onto the highway so they gain, oh about 2 car lengths on the rest of the rush hour traffic. No one is fooled, you stupid bastards. She hates these people.
Miss Information knows that the problems of a library clerk and her car don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy mixed up world, but she feels much better now that she’s been able to vent about it.
