Miss Information is annoyed by a germophobe
Miss Information finally finished her last essay ever and has time to concentrate on leisure reading, hockey playoffs and pollen counts.She had just started her shift on Wednesday when a regular patron came to the desk and stood in front of Miss Information's clearly busy co-worker. Miss Information beckoned to the woman. "I can help you!" she said in her best friendly public servant voice.
The woman glared at her and said she preferred to wait for the other staff member. Miss Information tried to convince her that this was unwise, when she--almost a librarian--would be happy to help. The woman kept glaring. She told the other staff member she wanted to book the computer.
"But I can do that for you!" Miss Information announced and began getting her computer prepared for the task.
"No, I want her to help me," said the patron. The "her" in question had now left the desk, so Miss Information made an attempt to pick up the woman's library card, only to have the woman snatch it away.
"I don't want you touching my card until you wash your hands!" the woman said venomously. "I can't be exposed to germs!"
Even when she was 5 years old, Miss Information bristled at these sorts of orders. Instead of washing her hands, she got the cleanest looking staff member she could find to help the woman. Eventually she realized the woman had probably seen her blow her nose a few minutes earlier but she still did not appreciate being treated like Patient Zero. In fact it really made her want to run over to the woman's Internet terminal and lick the keyboard. This being a public library computer, somebody else has probably done that already exposing the woman to all sorts of scary diseases. Good.
For the record: it's allergies, not the Black Death.
5 Comments:
And I am betting she is someone who returns books all slimy...or smelly....eeeww
Does she not realize how germy the public computers are anyhow? I'd rather one person touch my card than put my hands all over those keyboards.
I have one word for her: money. Eww, if you think about it. Handled by who knows how many people, stuffed into pockets next to used hankies.
I think I would probably have been hard pressed not to laugh out loud at the "I can't be exposed to germs" statement. A public library is not ideal for anyone worrying about this.
If she's a germaphobe, she should wear a hazmat suit.
And, BTW, GO SENS GO!!!
When I worked at a small neighbourhood branch of our library a regular customer, a few shy of one's usual brick allotment, used the corner of her lib. card to scratch as far into her ear as she could push it while she asked about some book or movie title, then wanted me to put a hold on the damned thing since it wasn't on the shelf.
Unfortunately for me, in order to place a hold I need to scan a library card so she immediately and eagerly forks over her grotty, disgusting, ear-waxy card which, of course, I handled extremely gingerly and gave back FAST.
After sending (practically shooing!) her on her way, I thanked my lucky stars that in that branch the staff washroom containing REAL soap, ACTUAL water, and NO library-zombie germs was only about ten steps away (toldya it was a small branch LOL!).... I ewwwww'ed all the way there, and the rest of the staff turned kinda green when I recounted THAT pleasant little transaction! Not that I'm so sheltered that I haven't encountered many yuckier things before in life, but REALLY.
{{Shudder}}
Hang in there, Miss Info, hope the pollen counts drop soon!
Shar
:-)
PS: We should get Crazy Germophobe Woman and Ear-Wax Idiot in the same book club as the C.O.W.s, and then start taking bets on how soon they'd get into a dust-up with each other LMAO!
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