Miss Information

Miss Information is annoyed by a new theme day

Poor Miss Information hadn't gotten the press release announcing that Tuesday was Feisty Obnoxious Old Lady Day--FOOL for short. She was minding her own business at the reference desk when the first eruption occurred. The woman at the circulation desk was screaming. She's nearly 90! The library is discriminating against her! Had all the nice old staff members retired? The young people today have no respect for seniors! She'd been coming to the library for 70 years and no, she was not going to show ID! Some nerve asking such an impertinent thing!

As the woman stomped down towards reference, Miss Information beat a hasty retreat into the back room. Her co-worker is nearing retirement age and could communicate with this woman on her own terms. Also, Miss Information is a complete coward.

The problem was that the woman's card had expired. When this happens, the library requires the tiniest glance at some address ID. The woman would not show ID because it was clear the library hates senior citizens. Young whippersnappers have no respect. Miss Information's colleague--who is not what you would call a young whippersnapper--tried to reason with the screaming woman. Of course, you can't really reason with people who are screaming at the library, so she went to get a supervisor. At some point, Miss Information returned to the desk to deal with the non-screaming customers. The yelling woman kept ranting away, complaining now about how long the co-worker was taking. At one point she turned to Miss Information and asked her why she personally hated senior citizens so much. Up until this very second, Miss Information hadn't realized that she disliked them at all, but if she had to pinpoint a reason, it would probably be the way they scream about library policy.

Miss Information went for the safe answer, however, and told the woman that everyone has to show ID, not just seniors. The woman went back to muttering about being nearly 90 and how awful the library was to make her wait. Also, that ID thing was really bugging her. When Miss Information's co-worker returned, Madame Screamy pulled out some perfectly acceptable ID, her card was renewed, everyone waved good-bye to the nasty old bat and got back to work.

Then Miss Information noticed that it was also the day of the Cranky Old Women's Bookclub--COW for short. This bookclub is not sponsored by the library, they rent space and complain bitterly about everything--especially things Miss Information can't help them with. She hoped to avoid them, but suddenly the phone rang. It was one of the COWs. She was upstairs at the meeting room but the door wasn't open. What's worse, it was obvious someone was in the room and they were ignoring her! She was knocking on the door! Miss Information could actually hear what she would describe as "pounding on the door". The COW demanded that Miss Information unlock the door this instant and explain what was happening!

Miss Information doesn't have keys to the door, but found someone who does. The reason the door was locked was because the COWs didn't officially have access to the room for another 10 minutes. The person in the room was the clerk setting up the chairs and didn't want a bunch of COWs getting in his way. He admitted later that he was also a little frightened of the way the women were trying to kick the door down.

Miss Information has never seen the appeal of bookclubs but doubts that the COW ladies ever get around to discussing books. She imagines that the first part of the meeting is devoted to a conversation about how the library is ruining everything and then in the second hour they strategize about getting back at them. Miss Information would ask to join, but suspects she isn't nearly cranky enough for them. She recently met a woman who might be a perfect fit though.

posted by Miss Information @ 12:00 PM