-Pipsqueak
Labels: Marie Antoinette, public school, sarcasm
Labels: gross, hygiene, internet, odor, smell
Games to play in the library: What’s that smell?
It smells like something dead. The smell permeates throughout the entire library, but it is at it’s worst somewhere around my desk. Check the hamster cage (He smells fine. Clean bedding. Alive.). Check the aquarium (Nothing floating. All good). Check yourself (Did I put on deodorant today? Yeah, I did. I’m good.) Surreptitiously check your coworkers (What are you sniffing around me for?).
Pointless. Because I know it is coming from the old guy who just borrowed our paper. How can a person get so unimaginably filthy that they smell like a corpse? But rather than telling him: "Sir, you stink. You are making me nauseous,” I spray a liberal dose of Lysol around the hamster cage and pretend that it is only the critter after all.
At least the smell has cleared out the Internet crowd.
See: cleanliness, hygiene. See also: sanitation, public health.
Feb 16, 2009
"Are you open today?"
"Are you open today?"
"Do you have special hours today?"
"I didn’t think you would be open today."
"Just checking to see if anybody was there."
"Are you open today?"
Because I am here answering phones when the library is closed, just to screw with people.
Feb 14, 2009
Seen and overheard on this busy Saturday afternoon at the library:
Woman in line to the Spanish speaking family behind her:
“Are you Spanish?”
“yes”
“Mexicans? You are from Mexico?”
“no”
“You are such a nice Mexican family! I love Mexicans
“Excuse me, Miss? I didn’t know the library has pornography.”
“Neither did I.”
“You just leave these magazines sitting around with all these kids running through here?"
“Sir, That’s Cosmo. It’s an adult magazine, and this is the adult collection.”
“Well it says orgasm right on the cover. I don’t want to sit here staring at this pornography.”
"How about I put that back on the shelving cart?"
"Can I get this in English? It says it’s a foreign film.”
"It says here on the back that this is a Dutch film. It has English subtitles.”
“I want the English one. I don’t want subtitles.”
“There is no English one. This is a Dutch film. That’s what foreign means.”
“Well fuck that. I don’t see why you have movies if they aren’t even in English.”
The same Spanish family accosted again:
“What are all your names?”
“Ramirez.”
“Jaun? Jaun’s such a nice name for a Mexican.”
“No, Ramirez.”
“That’s nice.”
“Can I borrow a phone?”
(They are kind of attached to my desk.)
Labels: drama in three lines, exorbitant charges, makin' copiesFeb 12, 2009-PipsqueakPatron: "Is your copier still ten cents a page?"Me: "Fifteen cents a page now."Patron: (Under breath but audible,) "Jesus fucking christ."I know, you're being financially raped by the document replication industry. They make those things impossible to use, too, so I totally understand why you refused my offer of help and instead stormed out of the building after fumbling with the machine for a minute or two. The copier people are really sticking it to us.
Labels: cell phone, obese, teenagersFeb 11, 2009
To the obese teenage boy who body-slammed me in the lobby:
There are few things more unnatractive than being reamed in the back by 200 lbs of man boobs.
Also, taking your cell phone call into the men’s room is just stupid. The echoing walls only made it possible for the ENTIRE library to hear your conversation.
See: weight control, teenagers. See also: ettiquette, cell phones.
Labels: computers, line-up, taxesFeb 9, 2009
Today’s computer line-up:
First in the row is a young man who wanted me to help him pimp-out his job application. (Application has two “p”s. Cashier is spelled with a “C”, not a "K.”) He needs a job to impress this girl he met on MySpace, to get money to pay for her dinner at Hooters next month.
Next two computers are doing Online Taxes. (I really don’t suggest you do your taxes on the library computers. That guy sitting next to you isn’t flirting with you, he is stealing your social security number.)
Next two are Facebook.
Next one: “Why aint my MySpace working?”
At the end of the line is a teenage boy listening to his headphones so loud that I can hear the lyrics from across the library. I would tell him to turn them down, but his pants are around his knees and I can’t keep a straight face talking to a kid in red boxer shorts.
Another example of well-spent tax dollars educating the masses at the public library.
Labels: tax forms, tax season, taxes, W2Feb 5, 2009
Tax season brings out the best in people. It also brings out the people who never come in to the library at any other time of the year, and suddenly swarm in search of free tax help, free tax forms, and (sometimes) free money.
Tax season brings questions such as “I need that form where you put your social security number on it and they give you money for having kids.”
and
Then there was the guy who thoroughly insulted my coworker at the Circulation desk because she tried to explain to him, nicely, that if he hadn’t been employed last year he wasn’t going to have a W2. And then further insulted the reference staff by demanding that we produce a W2 for him anyway. They even got him a sample W2 blank from the IRS website, which he threw back at them because it wasn’t what he wanted.
And for the record: I can’t get you a W2. I can’t get you a 1099, either. Nobody can.
And of course I can’t say ANY of this to the friendly people who come to my desk, because I am forbidden from giving any tax advice. Any at all. Becuase I am not a CPA, and I am not trained .
I probably screwed up my own taxes royally, so you don’t want my advice anyway.
And this rant is even annoying me. We get the same shit every year during tax season. I don't know why it still bothers me.
