Miss Information is overwhelmed by weirdness
Miss Information is not in the best of moods. It was non-stop annoyingness today. Luckily she has a short memory. These were perhaps not the strangest customers today but they are the ones she remembers right now.
1. Guy who had highly classified documents to shred. Not a service the library provides. He vented for a while about his options. He could give his precious documents to someone else to shred, but what if they read them? He couldn’t take that risk. His second option was to use a shredder at UPS but that was a strip shredder. He needed his documents shredded into tiny unreadable pieces and didn’t consider anything bigger than 2 mm in size as destroyed enough. Miss Information doesn’t have anything that private.
2. A couple needing help finding a job. Miss Information interpreted this as showing them library resources; the couple appeared to want her to do the actual finding. Look at Miss Information fellas. Does it look like she has any skill at job finding? If she were good at job hunting would she be here? Anyway, the couple had many employment barriers. Among the ones they mentioned: physical handicaps, age, long periods of unemployment. To these Miss Information would add: really thick accents and a complete lack of interest in actually looking at the library job finding resources themselves. Also, Miss Information had the uncomfortable feeling that these people wanted something beyond her insightful introduction to library materials. She thinks they really wanted either sympathy or money. Possibly both. Their accents made it difficult to tell.
3. A woman who wanted information about free legal advice in a different part of the city. Miss Information began to tell her about legal aid. No no, the woman insisted. She didn’t need legal aid. She just wanted to go somewhere and talk to a lawyer. For free. She didn’t need legal aid, though. Um…ok. Miss Information wondered whether this was a way to meet guys with good jobs…
On a related note, Miss Information was in the office next to their legal aid lawyer tonight. She swears she overheard him giving travel advice. Boy that guy provides an excellent service. Miss Information wonders how his job hunting skills are. Because she knows a couple who could use his help.
Miss Information blames Orville Redenbacher
It’s summer. The library is busy. In spite of this the wait to get on to an Internet computer is only about 5 minutes. That this is an interminably long wait for most people puzzles Miss Information. A typical conversation goes like this:
Twitchy customer: Can I use a computer?
Miss Information: All the computers are in use right now. I’ll book you an appointment. It’s usually just a 5 minute wait.
Twitchy customer: Don’t you have anything sooner? I needed it right away.
Miss Information offers to stab the kid on terminal 21 watching the old episodes of the Price is Right. It would free up a computer quickly but the vultures and maggots might be a bit distracting.
When did 5 minutes become a long time? Miss Information has waited longer than 5 minutes for many things—Mr Right, enlightenment, the end of Stairway to Heaven, etc.
It isn’t that long. Read a book.
Miss Information has given up
Yesterday Miss Information allowed a game of Manhunt to continue uninterrupted because one of the participants looked like he could use the exercise.
When is summer over?
Miss Information gets to participate in the founding of a new sport
Miss Information has been distracted all week trying to straighten out a glitch in her acceptance to graduate school. It is particularly annoying because she was fairly certain this application malfunction had already been addressed. She has decided that graduate school is just like her one and only girly summer blouse—she irons the front, she irons the back, then she starts over again. Stupid girly blouse. If only her beloved Daniel Johnston t-shirt didn’t need laundering occasionally she wouldn't have these issues.
As she was firing off e-mails hither and yon in the vain hope that someone would help her solve this stupid-ass problem—the school one, not the ironing one, she heard the sound of flesh making contact with other flesh. She didn’t realize at the time, but this was the opening bell signalling the start of the pro-level version of Manhunt. Very similar to Manhunt, this game has the added appeal of random violence. How charming.
Miss Information named it “Girl Slap” to honour the teenagers who were the inventors of the game. “No, it’s ok,” one of them insisted when Miss Information suggested she refrain from slugging other people. “She’s my friend.” This made Miss Information very sad. Her friends only have coffee with her. Stupid underachieving friends.
Girl Slap despite its name, can be played by anyone. Female, male and intergender divisions are equally popular. Sure to be the new hit of the summer it is beloved by everyone. Except Miss Information. She just thinks it’s stupid.
Miss Information does not have that kind of time
Miss Information had another phone call from the guy who likes to argue with her about library hours. Just for the record—the library hours are what they are and arguing with Miss Information isn’t going to change anything. The conversations always start about something else, collections, services, whatever. At some point Father Time declares his intention to come to the library, if only he knew when it was open. From there it all goes downhill.
Miss Information tells him the hours. He accuses her of lying. Fun. To be fair, he doesn’t come right out an use the l-word, he says things like “I’m not sure that’s accurate” and goes on to point out that Miss Information has neglected to mention that the library is not open on Christmas Day or some such insanity.
Today the man is upset because Miss Information has given him the library’s summer hours. Well, it’s summer, duh. But the man has a copy of the library’s March newsletter which lists entirely different hours. Obviously Miss Information is a filthy liar. Miss Information tries to explain that the winter newsletter lists the winter hours. This is why the library also produces a summer newsletter. Nice as it is, the winter newsletter is not scripture and should be lining someone’s birdcage right about now.
The man does not care for inaccuracy of this sort. Neither does Miss Information. However he thinks it is worth arguing about for 10 minutes; she doesn’t have that kind of time.
Here’s a partial list of reasons why the library hours might not be exactly as stated in the newsletter:
Blizzard
Bubonic Plague
Power failure
Poison gas leak
Public holiday
Apocalypse
Flood
Plague of locusts
Building collapse
Crime scene investigation
Fire
Hostage taking
Wombat infestation
Miss Information hopes that after she retires she can find a better hobby than arguing with library staff. Stamp collecting, perhaps.
