It doesn't take long for Miss Information to get annoyed
It was her first day back after a short vacation and Miss Information was really feeling ambivalent about returning to work. As she looked at her closet full of scary-looking t-shirts she had two thoughts. First she thought that maybe she would postpone the annual summer parade of scary-looking t-shirts for one more day and wear a proper blouse. Her second thought was how nice it is to work in a place with no dress code. She decided to wear a lacy, flimsy blouse which required so much adjustment over the course of the day that she spent much of the time wearing a denim jacket just for the sake of decency.
Her shift started at 12:00. Her first homicidal thought came at 12:15. By 12:17 she considered going home. She
was wearing her jacket and her car keys were in the pocket. At 12:25 she wanted to lock herself in the washroom and cry, except she seemed to be the only person who actually gave a damn that Clerical X wasn't going to get paid unless they confirmed his hours for a particular shift--within the next 5 minutes. Well, Clerical X probably cared, but he wasn't there. In fact, no one who could verify the hours was present--which is why they have written records of these things. Too bad the written record had vanished. Too bad the employees who could confirm the hours were variously unavailable. Too bad Miss Information was the only one interested in solving the problem.
She paid the guy. He probably deserved it.
Miss Information is annoyed at a party
Miss Information was reading about how penguins are so eager to reproduce that they will nurture things that sort of remind them of eggs--egg-shaped pieces of ice, for example. She has never understood the whole procreation imperative. There are already enough people in the world she can’t stand, why should she run the risk of creating another one?
In any case, her sister has kindly provided her with two nieces to corrupt, so
that requirement is satisfied anyway. (At this time, the children are
still refusing to sing along with “Sheena is a Punk Rocker”. This makes Miss Information very sad but she figures she’ll wear them down in a couple of years.) Tonight she was drafted to take the elder niece to a birthday party. No problem. It’s fun to help out! The party schedule pretty much trashed her usual Thursday plans of aerobics and yoga, but hey, in wartime everyone has to do their part. And how hard is it to drop a kid off at a party place?
Here was Miss Information’s plan: take the child at the appointed time to the appointed address. Then, because she’s really trying to be more social, she would explain her sister’s absence to the greeter/doorperson/parent, leaving her cell phone number and detailed instructions about what to do if her niece had an allergic reaction to cake or set fire to something and then take off for the nearest coffee place. But see, Miss Information was unaware of a whole bunch of things. One thing is that these party play place dealies are just basic unrelenting chaos—so no doorman. Another thing she forgot is that all those other parents/caregivers already know each other from school, scouts and target shooting classes. And they aren’t that interested in making acquaintance with someone new—especially someone like Miss Information who doesn’t know the secret mom handshake. All the moms at the party just kind of ignored her. Finally she honed in on a woman who appeared to be in charge and waited while the woman chatted about some softball tournament with some other mom and walked away. It was like Miss Information was invisible. She felt like standing in the middle of the floor and announcing she was a pedophile. She was suddenly sorry she had changed out of her skull t-shirt into something more middle class parenty. Eventually she cornered the woman and introduced herself but since the woman still didn’t acknowledge her she didn’t give out that cell phone number. Maybe the women at the party can’t cope with someone who doesn’t have the vacant, stressed-out stare of the mother of a 5 year old.
Anyway the kid was successfully dropped off. Miss Information had coffee. Eventually she picked the kid up and took her home again. When Miss Information got home she discovered that her garbage can had been stolen. It was just one of those days.
Miss Information is annoyed by the disgruntled
The patron announces that she prays for the library every night. That's just so touching...but wait, it turns out the woman is merely praying that bad things happen to the library staff. Miss Information is no expert, but that doesn't seem very spiritual to her. And besides, they already have to work here, so some supernatural being is obviously taking revenge for something already and the woman needn't bother.
It turns out that the library had provoked the wrath of this woman and the gods themselves by unreasonably requesting that she return her books in a timely fashion. It had all started several months ago when the patron insisted that she had brought those books back, but they had somehow not been discharged from her record and were not to be found anywhere in the library. Then a miracle occurred. Several of the books were dropped off in the library book drop, by an "angel" the customer insisted.
Miss Information is going right home to dust off her copy of Wings of Desire. She just loves the part where the angel flies around Berlin returning overdue library books.
Alas, this woman's angel had neglected to pay the outstanding fines owing on the books. No pockets, Miss Information assumes and a backpack would get in the way of the wings. A clutch bag seems a good alternative, but what if you were suddenly called upon to dance on the head of a pin or play the harp?
At any rate the library wanted its money and the woman opted for divine intervention.
Well, at least all she did was pray for the library's misfortune, another overachieving patron took matters into his (or her) own hands, so to speak by trashing one of the library offices and using it as a toilet. Nice. Miss Information agrees that the public washrooms are indeed terrifying, but she would suggest a strongly worded letter of complaint.
If that doesn't work out, there's always the power of prayer.
Miss Information is annoyed by the heat and the humidity
Thank you for your helpful suggestion that Miss Information turn on the library air conditioning. See she was just sitting here obliviously with her shirt plastered to her back and her thighs stuck to the chair. She
had noticed several of her colleagues melt into puddles of sweat and she thought that was a little strange, but hey...some of them have pretty weird habits and she tries not to judge them.
In fact, dumbass, Miss Information was already well aware that the library was oh, about 100 degrees warmer than normal. See, she's not just a pretty face. In addition to recognizing temperature change, she is also familiar with the difference between night and day and golly gee yes, she agrees that it would be damn nice if the air conditioner was on. So really, even
you could probably have guessed that everyone is sitting placidly around in this sweltering building because the air conditioner is malfunctioning.
It's really quite obvious when you think about it.
