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.
4 Comments:
Miss Information the Alderwood Branch adores you. We think you should write a book.
Kisses.
"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."
Are you sure you haven't been surreptitiously working in my library???:)
Here's a reference question for you: Where DO library spoons go? Perhaps they run off with the dishes - which also seem to go missing. But no reports in Toronto of lots of laughing dogs or cats with fiddles.
Do the library trolls take them - along with the staplers, long pencils and pens that write?
I used to think staff hoarded them in their desks. But if that were the case, surely when a staff member left a clutch of spoons would show up in the kitchen, but that never happens.
So now, each time I leave a branch, I give a donation of spoons. I think of them as sacrificial offerings to the Library Goddess.
At the library where Miss Print works, the refridgerators and washrooms are rarely the source of foul odours. Most often it is the patrons who are stinking up the joint. As the temperature outside rises, so does the pong of those who think that "soap" and "wash" are four-letter words, to be avoided at all costs.
Miss Print longs for the days when one could keep a lavender-scented handkerchief in one's sleeve or pocket, retrieving it to discreetly dab at the nose to keep smells at bay when having to assist the unwashed.
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