Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Miss Information is annoyed by bodily functions

A patron asked if he could have a tissue. Miss Information said sure. It's been cold and the fellow's nose was visibly running. Ew, dude, you could have used your sleeve. He helped himself to several but instead using one to wipe his nose (which would have helped!), he decided to explain why he'd asked. (Miss Information is a smart woman. Also, she has eyes.)
 
See, he usually brings his own but today he forgot. He has bad nose bleeds, see, so he likes to have a bunch of tissue just in case. Yeah, so sometimes he needs to go to the hospital and get his nose cauterized but it's not as bad as it used to be. They can cauterize without sticking a big metal tube into your nose nowadays. Well it's still pretty gross. Oh and yeah, he has to be really careful when he clips his nose hair because sometimes he accidentally clips part of his nose and that's not good. Also, when you're plucking the hair out of your ears you should be really careful that the hair you're plucking isn't connected to a nerve, because he did that once and it was really bad. So you should just get someone else to trim the hair instead. Also there was this one time he slid down a slide that was wet. Boy that was almost a bad situation. He could have gotten really hurt. Fortunately, the slide was plastic, not metal, so he didn't get hurt. 
 
Miss Information has no clue what the slide part is about but she nods and smiles--which is hard because the man's nose has been running thoughout the entire conversation even though he could wipe it at any time because he's got all that tissue. Again, ew.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Miss Information believes that children are the future. Oh, good.

Oh how Miss Information loves children. They brighten her day with their cheerful faces, their delightful enthusiasm, their wild imaginations, their Napoleonic complexes. Oh, it's a wonderful world. 

On Friday night, about 20 minutes before the library closed, the network crashed. It happens--rarely. While the circulation staff tried to get the backup system working, Miss Information made herself useful by directing people away from the self-checkout machines and putting up out of order signs.

And then he came along. Miss Information heard a thumping sound quite near her and turned towards it. It was a five-ish year-old boy stomping his feet. He glared at Miss Information and snarled at her. "You need to go over there!!!!" he exclaimed, pointing angrily at the circulation desk. 

Miss Information is generally good with kids, as hard as that is to believe, and decided to take her usual approach which is to pretend they aren't little kids.  She explained to the furious youngster that she can't got "over there" because she hasn't been trained and doesn't know how "over there" works. The child stomped his feet again and announced that Miss Information needs to go over there "right now!" and that "it works the same as here [self-checkouts]". Which it totally doesn't but Miss Information has decided to end the relationship with Cranky McStompypants here.

She glanced at his caregiver--his mother probably--who was beaming proudly at her bossy, impatient spawn. Did she think it was a good thing to have a little kid trying to bully an adult professional?

So, yeah. Miss Information loves the children.  



Wednesday, November 05, 2014

Miss Information is annoyed by civic engagement....again

Miss Information is greeted by one of the regulars. He's a nice older fellow, always cheery, even in the morning. 

After exchanging pleasantries the gentleman asks if Miss Information has seen the results. She has. Because she doesn't like talking politics with the patrons, she mutters something vaguely affirmative. The man's reply is a bit unexpected.

"Oh it was great, wasn't it?" he says. "I just love Simon Cowell. And then the day before it was Dancing with the Stars. Some of those celebrities think they can dance but they really can't. Have a good day, my dear."

So, yeah. Miss Information has no idea what's going on.