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Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Library Banter

Working at home has it's distractions: food staring in my face, chores staring in my face, my mother staring in my face. So I got this bright idea to go to the local library to get some work done. Too bad every busybody with plenty of time on their hands had the same idea.

I thought libraries were supposed to be quiet. I mean the babies and kids that occasionally escape the Children's room into the reading area don't bother me. It's the non-stop chatter that goes on at the information desk that drives me insane. I can't get far enough away. It wouldn't make a difference anyway, because once I listen to a tale of geriatric misfortune, I am tempted to see what the fool looks like.

I feel like asking them how they could be seventy-two years old and make such a dumb mistake. Hasn't life taught them anything? Like, how to have a quiet conversation? Who puts off returning books for seven months simply because she was told she had to upgrade her library card to a new electronic one? I was ready for the old woman to say she couldn't pay the penalty because her money was tied up in her savings passbook.

But what did I expect? Books are old school. Nobody sits and reads an actual book anymore. Not with Kindles and movies butchering a story with their own interpretation. I should have known all the stubborn old folks who refuse to upgrade would be perusing the aisles and holding the librarian hostage with their senility.

The seven-month-overdue lady took twenty-five minutes to resolve her case. That's record time if you ask me. The librarian took the next customer, a tall, dark skinned man with white hair - probably in his sixties.

"Wow, you got some real talkers today, huh?" He tells the librarian.

"Well, you know th-"

"Some people just don't realize that this is a library and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah..." He goes on for about five minutes about "inappropriate manners" in a library.

HELLOOOOW?

Needless to say, my 'working at the library' days are over. Besides, their Internet connection is slow and get this - for some websites that contain curse words, I have to go to the librarian and prove that I'm over eighteen to be granted access. WTF? I almost went up there and said that at full volume.

Would have loved to see the reaction to that from tall-dark-man-who-waited-too-long-to-log-on-the-library-computer-and-has-to-sign-up-and-wait-again.

2 comments:

  1. Our local library is like a freaking zoo...I will say though that books are good for me ...I asked for a kindle for Christmas and my BF aka santa got me a computer instead...

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  2. A computer isn't bad, but why can't men get you EXACTLY what you ask for?

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