A long long time ago....

when I still updated my blog, I liked to talk about crazy patrons I encounter in the library. But since its Summer, I've been pretty busy doing Summery things and dealing with the ever crazy Summer Reading Program (or as us library insiders like to call it...SRP) at work, so I've completely neglected my blog. I thought I would catch you up with a little bulliten list of fun things that have been happening recently.

• Neck Hair Man -- One Thursday night as I sat on the reference desk with my Adult Services Librarian (ASL), I noticed that she gave me a weird look and mouthed something to me. I had no idea what she was saying but I just smiled and nodded and didn't really give it any thought. Until I saw it. The man directly infront of my work station had neck hair poking out of the top of his Hawaiian shirt, and its not like it was just a little bit of hair poking out, like he didn't shave his neck or something. It was like 3 INCHES of hair sticking out. And the worst part? His wife was standing behind him stroking it!!! I turned to ASL with what I'm sure was a look of horror, now fully understanding what she was trying to tell me earlier!

• Fax Lady -- We are getting multiple calls a night from a lady who is trying to call her husband at a military base in the Mojave Desert. It's almost sad because she seems a little bit confused and is blaming the operator for crossing the lines. The irritaing thing is after explaining to her that she is calling a number with a South County area code, she doesn't believe me when I tell her that it can't possibly be the area code for the base that she is trying to call. She tells me she has had this number since right after "The War". It's sad, it's annoying, and she just won't listen.

• Troll Lady -- As my library serves a beach town we see our fair share of homeless people. Some are really nice, some are crazy, and some are a combination of both. Troll Lady likes to talk to you. She likes to tell you all about the funeral services that shes planning for her dead homeless friend (which is actually kind of nice if you ignore the parts that sound a little paranoid). The other day she was buying a plane ticket, and came up to share the price with myself and the ASL. This started a conversation with the ASL that lasted for about 15 minutes, I ended up having to rescue the ASL by placing a call to the reference desk from the back room. I'll be honest and say that I would be a little frightened if I got on a plane and had to sit next to her. She's nice, but a little nuts, and a little smelly. :(

• Creepy Guy at Closing -- He's a new fellow. Lately he's been staying all day in the library working on his laptop computer, thats fine. In fact, we have a lot of people who spend all day in the library. The issue that I have with him is that he is CONSTANTLY staying until after closing. We CONSTANTLY have to walk him out the door, and all the while he has this creepy smile on his face and cracks little jokes about walking us ladies out of the library and keeping us safe. It's creepy. And on top of that! he's one of those people who gets into my personal space, he'll lean over the reference desk to ask me a question. BLEH! Stay out of my space!

• Man Living in our Portopotties -- This is a second hand story. I did not encounter this man myself, but I know him from his visits into the library. Our public restrooms have been under construction for about a year now. We were updating them to make them more ADA compliant and they found dry rot in the tower above them and had to red tag that part of the building, so we've had portopotties in the parking lot of a while. One day, we had a complaint about someones feet sticking out of the toilet. I believe it was our lovely ASL that had to go out and see who it was, and inform them that they were not allowed to stay/live in the handicap portopottie. EW EW EW EW

• Xanax Guy -- One day while outside enjoying the lovely summer evening in the parking lot, on my break, I was approached by a man wanting to sell me Xanax. After getting upset that I did not want to buy anything from him he walked off. I had to call the sheriff to report it, as there are lots of children in the area and the guy seemed like a freako deako!.

• Ring in the Toilet Lady -- This is another second hand story, courtesy of our lovely ASL. ASL answered the phone the other day in regards to a call about a lost ring. This is how the conversation went according to ASL:

ASL: Hello -------- Reference Desk How can I help you?

RitTL: Hi, Yes, I lost uhhh a ring the other day.

ASL: Okay, did you want to see if someone turned it in?

RitTL: Yes.. well uh I uh lost it outside of the uh library.

ASL: Okay.. well we do have a lost and found and it may...

RitTL: Um uh.. I think it might still be where I lost it... I lost it in the toilet.. it uh kind of fell in....

ASL: In the toilet?

RitTL: uhhhh yea.

ASL: Well, what do you want me to do?

RitTL: well uhhhh could you go uhhh look?

ASL: Actually, we just had our toilets unloaded....

RitTL: uhhhh do you think I could call them? uhhh like how does that work?

ASL: I believe it's done with a hose....and I don't think they would be able to look for you..

RitTL: You don't think so? Why not?

ASL: Well... it's human excrament that you lost it in...

Now one would think that this ring is like 4 carats or something huge right? It's a silver ring. It just has "sentimental value". I don't think sentimental value is going to convince someone to sift through poop and pee to find it for you.

All of these lovely stories have been brought to you by the very sweaty library assistant who has been suffering without A/C :)