Miss Information has post-Christmas crankiness
Miss Information came back to work yesterday after spending Christmas watch her strangely jaded 5 year old niece open presents--“Oh. Toys. Nice,” she said in a monotone. When Miss Information was a girl, all she got for Christmas was socks and she was happy, dammit.
At the library all is peaceful. It is mainly peaceful because the switchboard phones are malfunctioning and no one can call to ask if the library is open. (And by the way, if you ever call a library and an actual person answers the phone, the library is probably open. So don’t ask if the library is open because that is really annoying. If the library is closed no one answers the phone.)
A couple of her co-workers have come back from vacation, so for the first time in recent memory there are more than two people working at reference and this makes Miss Information really happy—for about 10 minutes. Then they start getting in her way. There aren’t enough computers, there aren’t enough chairs and she keeps bumping into their stuff.
Shortly after the phones break, the dumbwaiter used to transport books from the main level to the children’s department breaks. The payphone is already out of order. Also, the library seems a lot chillier than usual. The elevator is making that groaning noise again.
Around noon the library is infused with the festive scent of ass when the sump pump malfunctions. Strangely, none of the customers complain. Windows are opened. The library gets colder.
Mid afternoon, the sink in the staff washroom springs a leak.
Something is stinking up the fridge. As always there are too many damn cookies in the library and people keep tempting Miss Information with chocolate.
Also, there are no teaspoons.
Miss Information simply cannot work under these conditions.
Miss Information is super freaky
What Miss Information loves most about the holiday season is the surprises. Like this year the evil children got together and had their annual Christmas gang fight one day early. Oh, kids, you shouldn’t have, really…
It did make today pretty quiet though. When Miss Information arrived for the late shift, several of the evil children were already surgically attached to their computers. Isn’t early dismissal a wonderful thing?
As she passed two of the charming, tow-headed psychopaths, one of them looked at her. “Rick James,” he said.
His friend turned to him in horror. “Dude,” he said, clearly stunned. “She knows who Rick James is.”
Miss Information confirmed that she does indeed know who Rick James is—having paid attention to things in the world for the past couple of decades. Not only that but she’s also pretty sure it was their not-so-secret-code way of calling her a bitch—which she sort of takes exception to, because she hadn’t started work at that point and wasn’t in full raging bitch mode until later.
It was such a touching Christmas moment.
Miss Information is annoyed by the uncertain
In the early afternoon, Miss Information approached one of her co-workers and asked a question. It wasn't that hard a question--one of those "yes or no" things.
It turned into a long drawn-out conversation in which Miss Information considered clubbing the woman to death.
About 5 minutes after she asked the question, Miss Information solved the problem herself. She didn't answer the question, but she found the thing the customer wanted and that was the important thing. She went back to her colleague and described the triumph.
For the remainder of the afternoon, the co-worker continued to obsess about the original question, coming back to Miss Information for clarification several times. Each time, Miss Information assured the woman that she no longer needed the answer.
At about 4:45 the woman approached Miss Information, happily. She had arrived at the answer at last! The answer she had reached was "I don't know".
Miss Information hates Wednesdays.
Miss Information is annoyed by winter
The following story is true. All of Miss Information's stories are true, but some of them may seem fictional. They are not. All of this actually happened.
Miss Information went on a road trip and so took all the unnecessary items out of her car. This means that there is a car seat, hand weights and other miscellaneous stuff in front of her hall closet. Also in front of her hall closet is a big stack of puzzle boxes waiting for a new home.
It is cold. Miss Information has a new coat. Years ago her sister gave her a very nice scarf that would perfectly match the new coat. This requires a trip to the hall closet.
This is what Miss Information did.
--moved car seat
--opened closet door
--opened little container of winter gear
--couldn’t find scarf
--moved puzzle boxes to open door wider
--took container of winter gear out of closet
--moved container into living room, opened it fully, still no scarf
--looked in closet again
--located scarf on the scarf holder thing that hangs over closet door
--tried to move scarf, discovered it was stuck, gave up
--looked for hat, found hat, put on hat
--closed closet door
--put back boxes
--put back car seat
--went into living room, noticed little container of winter gear still on couch
--moved boxes
--moved car seat
--opened closet door
--put container of winter gear back in closet
--closed door
--put back boxes
--put back car seat
--realized: still no scarf
--moved boxes
--moved car seat
--opened closet door
--tried to get scarf, still tangled on scarf holder thing
--detangled scarf from scarf holder thing, thus dislodging scarf holder thing
--re-hung scarf holder thing
--closed door, heard crack
--realized scarf holder thing was out of alignment
--discovered big noticeable chuck of wood was now missing from door frame
--crawled around on floor to locate big chunk of wood
--could not repair without glue, decided to do that tomorrow
--closed door
--put back car seat
--put back boxes
--put on scarf, put on coat, put on gloves
--got into car, realized it was too late to drink espresso in coffee place
--went to coffee place, got espresso to go
--went back to car, fumbled for keys
--dropped almost entire cup of espresso on new coat
--realized only thing in car that could possibly be used mop up espresso is scarf
--opted to leave espresso on new coat
--new coat now permanently espressoed
Luckily it's a black coat and Miss Information loves the smell of espresso in the morning.
