Wordapalooza and the Word Wizard V. Your Saturday Librarian

I just spent 27 minutes with a patron trying to help her find the book she wanted. Too bad that the book doesn't exist (oh my GOD, I thought I got rid of her, she just came back, ack, ack, ack, just go read some Zane, for fuck's sakes). She seemed nice at first. That is, until I couldn't produce the goodies. Then, your favorite FuckItLibrarian, Saturday Edition, became the raging moron of the century.

Let me just tell you that having the right words really helps. A lot. I mean, unless you're foreign, then there's no excuse. If you can't come up with the right words for the book, ESPECIALLY IF YOU'RE READING THEM OFF OF A SLIP OF PAPER, then there isn't much I can do to help you.

Word Wizard: The book I want is "The Central Woman."
Me: Ok, let me look it up, but do you have an author, because I bet there's a lot of books with that title.
WW: Why would I have an author? This person didn't give me an author. {Like I'm supposed to know who 'this person' is as Word Wizard waves around her papers. Nut jobs always come into the library with lots of papers. It's the first sign that you should duck and cover, but I was the only one on the floor and was a sitting, well, duck).
Me: Well, I have over 200 hits, so I can give you a print out and you can select which ones I want to order for you if you want to try it that way...
WW: What are they about?
Me: {meanwhile, screaming toddlers are throwing books, an annoyed lady is telling me that I should have more Triple Crown Books in the Branch, a teenage boy just grabbed a girls ass, some girl is still bitching about her headphones not working--god try earbuds) I'm sorry, I really don't have time to read them for you or summarize them, is there anyway you can contact your friend or the person that wrote the letter so you can maybe can an author's name?
WW: No. Try Central Woman. Try that. I think that's the name of it.
Me: Is the name of the book Essential Woman or Central Woman.
WW: {mumbles something I can't even fucking understand}
Me: Well, is this a book of stories? Or, is is non-fiction, like the history of women's sexuality?
Word Wizard: I don't know. She just told me to read it.
Me: Can I maybe see the letter?
Word Wizard: {folds up the letter into a tiny sqaure, exposing just the part that shows the title, there are three titles written down, all scrawled in old lady neat handwriting, like is her grandma telling her to read this? For fuck's sakes.) Yes. Here.
Me: (OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKES, the TITLE of the book is "Sensuous Woman.") Oh, the book you want is Sensuous Woman, not Essential Woman. Is that right? Or, did you want two books? (I enunciate, because, at this point, we're on like 10 minutes of this conversation, the toddlers are screaming louder, I have a headache, I need my snack, the kids are ridiculous, she's ridiculous, Triple Crown Lady is still screaming at me, and now Word Wizard is getting pissy with me.)
Word Wizard: Look up that.
Me: {That's so....clear, you dumb bag of rocks wearing a terrible powder blue cardigan with a glasses chain yelling at me how to be a sensous woman. Try not wearing that shitty outfit and throwing out those hideous monk shoes. I look up "Sensuous Woman.") I see a few things for "Sensuous Woman," but it doesn't seem like it's anything like what you're describing. I think that you should call your friend and maybe try to get an author. I don't want to order the wrong book for you.
WW: I can't call her.
Me: Well, I can try to order some of these for you, and you can see if they're what you want.
WW: I want the one my friend has written down.
Me: I'm really sorry, but I can't find that one, I'm seeing several titles, I can order them, and you can see which ones match up. You'll get in the books that I see that could be it, and you can send back the ones that you don't want. How does that sound?
Word Wizard: [glares at me] Why can't you just find it.
Me: Because you aren't giving me an author's name.
WW: What about Central Woman? CENTRAL?
Me: Ma'am, you're giving me three different words, I think that you need to get the exact title and author and maybe a summary of the book, otherwise, I think that you'll continue to be disappointed. We just need a little more information to get you what you need and then we'll be happy to help you out more.
Word Wizard: Oh, well, I think I'll try Barnes and Nobles.

And this, dear readers, was 27 minutes of my life down the shitter.

Of course, while I was writing this blog entry on a break, she came back to pester the sub here to ask her what she thought. The sub told her the same thing. I'm sure Word Wizard is off to another library to go torment some other poor Saturday Librarian now with her "senuous" baby blue cardigan and monk shoes.

Movies, we got movies for sale, get your movies!

A guy walks into the library (no, it's not the start of some pervy joke) and decides he's going to hand out his flyers in the library.

I'm not sure where I was, but I'm pretty strict about this because people will try to post ANYTHING in the library. By anything, I mean, A-N-Y-T-H-I-N-G. I've had people want to post sales ads for cars, wanted posters for missing kids, flyers with "Have you seen my baby daddy" scrawled all over them with a photocopy of his driver's license on it, flyers advertising home sales, car sales, day care services and even "escort services."

The security guard intercepted the guy and told him that he couldn't put the flyers in the library. The guard I have is a smart guy and perceptive and was 100% correct.


When the guard told the guy he couldn't hand these out, the guy got pissy.

"It's my biz-naz! Y'all can get some good deals on movies."

The guard explained to the man that he was soliciting and that isn't allowed. The guard further explained the movies are obviously bootlegs and that's not really legal.


My most favorite part of this is not that these are bootlegs, not that they guy was peddling them in the library, but the price structure. Look carefully!

Because throwing a chunk of concrete at the library is the answer

A security guard put out three kids (ages 17-19). One of them was a girl and just ran off her nasty, foul mouth at the guard. She is just a disgusting human being.

The other two idiots are like Dumb and Dumber. Their response was to jump on one of those library stools with the wheels on it. But, hey, guess what? Two people can't fit on that shit at the same time.

Meanwhile, the guard was telling the three morons to leave, otherwise, he was going to call the police. This set Dumb and Dumber, who are two rampant potheads who make me jealous of the good shit that they get, paranoid, but the girl kept yapping.

At this point, I entered the picture, just coming back from a meeting. I told the three fuckwads not to come back. This of course, set them off even more, but they left the building.

The guard looked after them, saw that they were gone, I had to meet with someone else (yes, meeting, meeting, meeting and a meeting about a meeting with spurts of yelling at potheads is my life, yes, I went and got a master's degree for that shit), so we let it be.

Not two minutes later, I heard a large BOOM!

At first, I thought that they were shooting at the building, but then I realized that they're too stupid and too high to shoot, but that I wouldn't have put it past the girl. Then, I saw them running. If they were shooting, they would have gone for a window (ask me how I know this, but, you are intellgent readers, I'm sure you can figure it out) and then would have ran. We walked outside and realized that one of the idiots ripped out a chunk of concrete from the sidewalk and then sailed it at the building.

Then, while we were inspecting the damage, the stupid fuckers came back to call us names. Really?!

I bet within a week they're going to try to come back into the branch. I'll remind them that the 'white bitch' will not be letting them back in any time soon. The best part is that when I called the police (two of the officers gave me their personal cell phone numbers), they pulled up, looked at the damage, knew which dumbfucks did it, and said that they'll give "'em a good scare on the streets."

I never thought I would have such a good relationship with the popo.

For now, I'm going to have another glass of wine and imagine that I'm independently wealthy and living in the south of France. And if you see typos here, please blame the excess wine and thank you.

Fear in the heart of the reference librarian soul

there is nothing that strikes fear into the heart of my reference librarian soul more than these sayings:
-i need to fix my car (because this means possibly an hour long dialog about car parts where the patron assumes that i know what these parts are)
-do you have law books (because the patron assumes that i am a legal expert)
-i need to write a research paper (because the patron wants you to write the paper)
-i need something typed (beacuse, you are, after all, a typist)
-i need to find 15 children's books (because, dammit, i know shit about children's books, but i act like i do since i kinda have to being a branch manager)
-how do i write a resume (because this actually means, 'will you just write my resume for me?')
-how much is this coin/old toy/salt shaker/fake declaration of independence/grammy worth?
-my great grandmother's last name was smith and she lived in georgia. *blank stare* (because, of course, this means that you can instantly go to the google and whip up a family tree!)

i'm sure that there's something i'm forgetting, but these are the ones that came to mind first.

*please note that the above statements are different than the statements that strike fear into the management part of my life.