Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Miss Information leaves a patron high and dry

The high school student approached the desk.

"Yo," he said, "Can I borrow your vaseline?"

"Huh?" Miss Information responded.

"Your vaseline?" he repeated.

"Um...we don't have any vaseline," Miss Information replied.

"Ok. What about Chapstick?" He asked.

So, basically this guy thinks the library has a communal tube of Chapstick that customers share? She can't hide her disgust.

"Ew," she says.

The student gets hostile. "Why don't you have vaseline? You have hand sanitizer."

Curses. Miss Information has been meaning to hide the hand sanitizer. Not so much from the patrons, some of whom could use some sanitizing (or is that sanity?), but from the reference staff, who view the little bottle as a religious relic and touch it as often as possible. It's nice to be hygenic, but Miss Information hates the smell of the stuff. She notices that her friendliness to her co-workers is directly proportional to the number of times they douse themselves with it.

She can't do anything about the librarians' cleanliness fetish, but she was able to help the young man with his chapped lips.

She directed him to a nearby drugstore.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Miss Information does it by the book

Miss Information just came back from her coffee break. The library’s elevator is once again out of order and the discussion over that inevitably led to a bawdy conversation about (please don’t be shocked) sex. A good time was had by most of the people in the staff room; a few were offended, but whatever.

The first patron Miss Information had (no, not like that) upon returning to the desk was an older gentleman requesting a book called Sex and the Seasoned Woman. The library owns 2 copies. The regular print one was signed out, but the large print one was available. Miss Information told the man he should take the large print copy now, because he probably didn’t want to wait. The man chuckled nervously and left with the large print edition.

When she got back to the computer, Miss Information noticed that the subject heading of the book was “Sex Instruction for Older People”. The title should have been a hint.

She meant wait for the book. Honest.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Miss Information hopes you got your things together

Miss Information thinks the full moon gets a bad rap. All the really crazy people spend the full moon hiding under their beds so they aren't a problem then--unlike the new moon, when they come out in droves in a futile effort to recruit new members into their subversive lifestyle.

Last night, Miss Information was forced to become involved in several disputes. The first was between the giggly, noisy high school girls who hang around the stairwell next to the reference desk and the non-giggly, noisy high school boys who hang around the stairwell next to the reference desk. They have so much in common--for one thing both groups irritate the hell out of Miss Information--why all the hostility?

Then a squirmish broke out between the ADHD kid (who so irritates Miss Information's colleague, Scooter) and the twitchy guy who comes to the library to check up on his hockey pool--the staff just refers to him as the "loser in the white hat". It seems ADHD kid was tapping his feet and this was annoying hat guy. Miss Information would have reluctantly sided with hat guy on this dispute if he only he had phrased his complaint differently. "That thing", he announced, pointing at ADHD kid, "Is making too much noise."

Well, whose side could Miss Information possibly take after that? Luckily, as always, she was not in charge and turned over the problem to a librarian.

Then there was the stranger in the staff hall. Miss Information approached him and asked if she could help him. No, he replied. He was just using the washroom. Miss Information explained that he was in a restricted area and that the public washrooms were in a different area, you know, the public area? At this point the man got kind of hostile. He was a professor, apparently. Um. Ok. But still not really on the staff of the library, right? Miss Information repeated that he needed to leave the restricted area as there was confidential material that needed to be kept away from the probing eyes of the public. The man huffed. Of course he understood the importance of confidential materal, he was a professor, after all. Miss Information mentioned that as interesting as all that was, he was still in a restricted area. He then tried to leave via the staff exit. Miss Information showed him the correct door. He finally left.

It would have been so much easier to just add him to the payroll.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Miss Information vows to fight the stupid people on the beaches

A college student approaches Miss Information. She doesn't appear to be an idiot--until she says this:

I need a biography of Winston Churchill. He was a journalist.

In fact, he was a journalist. Briefly. Then he went and got all political. Miss Information pointed out that most of the books would most likely concentrate on his career as Prime Minister. The student was surprised. He was Prime Minister?

Oh, dear.

Miss Information has culture shock

Miss Information is so going to stab the next person who wants books about "culture" and then won't explain exactly what they mean. See, pretty much all the books in the library have something to do with "culture" in some form or other.

Fortunately, Miss Information has been able to get away from the culture vultures for her lunch break.

She's having yogurt.