Miss Information is annoyed by a scheduling conflict
Miss Information received an e-mail suggesting that next week would be a really good time for her to conduct a training session on the library's new electronic calendar program. It's just too bad that Miss Information is on vacation next week.
It is also unfortunate that Miss Information doesn't know anything about the new electronic calendar program.
It would have been a pretty memorable training though.
Miss Information is annoyed by TV guy
Miss Information is unlucky enough to work in one of the few libraries that are open Friday nights. Because of this all the nutjobs from all over the city who can’t spend an hour without librarian attention call poor beleaguered Miss Information and share their weirdness with her.
Case in point: TV guy.
He wants to know about today’s episode of Family Ties. A few frustrating moments later it transpires that he really wants to know the name of the actor who played Mr Keaton’s father. Turns out that it was John Randolph. Miss Information always liked him. Saw him on Broadway once, in fact. TV guy wants to know if he’s still acting. Miss Information guesses he’s gone to the old theatre in the sky but decides to humour the nice taxpayer.
A quick Wikipedia moment later she is able to report the sad news that John Randolph is no longer with us having died in 2005 at the ripe old age of 88.
“Well, what’d he die of?” TV guy wants to know.
“Um…he was 88,” Miss Information replies.
“But what’d he die of?” TV guy repeats.
Miss Information checks the Wikipedia entry. According to them it was “natural causes”—also known as "he was 88".
“Natural causes? What’s that mean?” TV guy wants to know.
Miss Information again suggests that 88 is pretty old and maybe they didn’t really look into the death. Maybe it was his heart, maybe his lungs, maybe
he was 88, for god’s sake.
TV guy is not happy but decides to move on to his next stupid question. He wants Miss Information to find out whether any TV shows are having cast reunion movies in the near future.
Miss Information tries to beg off but he refuses to believe this is impossible. It’s in the computer he insists. Other libraries could find it. Just once Miss Information is going to respond to this statement by suggesting the customer call one of those other libraries. If those other libraries are so great why doesn’t he just marry them then?
Well, she attempts a Google search which gets her nowhere. TV guy is not going to go down quietly. He insists she look up Full House because there’s bound to be a Full House reunion in the works. Right. Sure there is. Not on this planet, however. By the way, Miss Information knows one of those Olsen twins is too thin but she’s studied pictures and still can’t figure out which one it is. Aren’t they both kind of on the stick figure side of reality?
Not satisfied, he asks about Webster. Like anyone would want to see a Webster reunion who wasn’t in the original cast. No luck there either.
The phone call ends with far too many questions about the Brady Bunch. Is the show on DVD? Where can he buy the DVDs? How much do they cost? No, not on Amazon. He wants to go to a store. Which stores have them? What about their CDs? (Like Miss Information needed any more proof he was insane…) No, he’s not interested on what’s available on Amazon. Which stores have them? Miss Information suggests HMV might be able to do a special order for them. He asks for the phone number of an HMV that is in a mall that is so far on the other side of town that it’s practically on another planet. Damn tourists.
Later TV guy phones back. He wants to know where he can buy a film projector. Miss Information looks it up in the yellow pages, suggests he do the same. He wants to know if libraries still have films and film projectors. She breaks the news that her branch dismantled its film department in the mid 1990s.
“Well, what’d ya do with the films and projectors and stuff?” TV guy asks.
Miss Information replies that she doesn’t know. Can’t she find out? TV guy wants to know.
After another 10 minutes of nonsense, Miss Information, who is alone at the desk tells TV guy that there’s a line up of people and she has to go help them for a while. TV guy suggests that those people can wait. Miss Information gets all defensive on behalf of these poor waiting people (who don’t actually exist) and insists that she can’t possibly spend any more of her life with TV guy.
Miss Information is creeped out by people with weird obsessions.
Miss Information is looking forward to being annoyed by library school
Miss Information was sort of prepared for the break up--dividing of the CDs, the argument over the custody of the cat. Unexpectedly though, library school wants to give the relationship a chance. That’s good because Miss Information thinks she might need the salary increase to pay for psychiatric treatment.
The extra money would be a great comfort on days like today when the library network goes down. This is what typically happens—the pixies and the basilisk use the Internet as a football and break it. This is why we can’t have nice things. It’s sad but well, what can you do?
Here’s what you do if you’re one of the library customers. You sit down at a computer. Miss Information or one of her colleagues informs you that the Internet is broken. There is no Internet. You appear to understand. You move to another computer. Miss Information or one of her colleagues informs you that the Internet is broken. There is no Internet. You move to computer number 3. Surely there must be Internet on computer number 3. Miss Information goes for her pepper spray. It will give you something to think about while the Internet is in the shop.
Or maybe they just want to mess with her head
Ok. So while Miss Information appreciates all the congratulatory messages, it turns out that library school may have just been jerking her around.
While the original e-mail offering her a place at the school, the official snail mail acceptance stipulates that certain conditions must be met. Sadly, Miss Information has not quite met one of these conditions.
She's e-mailed the original source to find out what the hell's going on.
Although this experience does sort of explain why all librarians are at least slightly eccentric and at most raving lunatics.
And now the real torture begins...
Library school has finally called. It has grudgingly decided give this relationship a chance although it is stubbornly refusing to attend the couples counselling Miss Information has suggested. She’s sort of bitter because she practically had to become a stalker to get its attention. It was probably shopping around for someone who wouldn’t giggle whenever it mentioned “interacting with information systems”—she can’t help it, it just sounds dirty. Fortunately all the other applications were busy washing their hair, or were dating other faculties or didn’t like them in that way, so Miss Information is now a future librarian.
