Monday, June 26, 2006

Good Morning, Sunshine!

I am a librarian, and I haven’t discussed that at all, so I figure it’s about time. I don’t really have a lot of funny/weird stories because much of my time has been spent in the back, cataloging. Well, okay, so I don’t have a lot of funny/weird stories about patrons.

But I have had jobs at different libraries, and have spent my share of time on the reference desk (especially now that I practically live at one), so I have had some close encounters with the strange and the smelly.

The worst experience so far that didn’t involve an encounter with an actual human was finding child pornography downloaded onto our computers. Nice way to start the day! This was a whole new level of disgusting and disturbing. And frustrating, as I was told by our computer people that there was “nothing they could do.” I beg your pardon? So now I just look for questionable things on the desktop every so often and delete what I find.

(Why are people so disgusting?!?!)

One day not too long ago I walked up to my desk, which is the reference desk. (Yes, as you may have suspected from an earlier comment, my desk is in fact the reference desk. I could go on and on about this state of affairs but I’ll spare you. For now.) There is a patron talking on my phone! Now, we provide a phone for patrons to use for local calls, completely free of charge. It is not the one on my desk.

So, as he was not actually speaking at the time, I said, “Sir, you’re not supposed to be using this phone.” He nodded and smiled like I’d just said, “Good morning, you handsome devil!”

I came around the desk, put my things away, and logged on to my computer. Thinking, Now he’ll realize this is my desk and he’ll get off the phone. Silly me! Courtesy is for fools, apparently.

He kept talking and talking, about some position or job offer or something. I made eye contact and told him again he needed to get off this phone. He didn’t. Finally, he wrapped up his conversation, just as I was about to disconnect the phone.

I told him again, “Sir, you’re not allowed to use this phone. We provide one in the computer lab for your use.”

He said, very sarcastically, “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought it would be all right, it was an urgency.” (Yes, he said urgency instead of emergency.) (And it wasn’t either one.)

I said, not sarcastic at all, and trying hard to be polite, “I’m sorry, but it didn’t sound like an emergency to me. This is my phone, and patrons aren’t supposed to use it.”

He said, “Oh, I didn’t realize you paid the bill on this phone.” Each word simply dripping sarcasm. Really, I think he cornered the market on it.

I said, clutching my patience and professionalism to me so tightly they could not breathe, “I don’t, sir, but it’s still my work phone. How would you like it if I walked into your office and started using your phone?”

He said, “If it was an urgency, I wouldn’t mind.” The voice of reason and compassion!

I said, “Well, it didn’t sound like an emergency to me.”

And there we left it.

Another wonderful start to another wonderful day!!

(Don't you just hate when you can’t think of anything clever to say when you really need to and then later think of all the great things you should have said?)

Sunday, June 18, 2006

And Now for Something Completely Different

It has been pointed out to me that my last post was very similar to a previous post of mine, so today's post will be brief, and, as promised, completely different.

Product Plug: CoverGirl LashExact Mascara

It really does go on without clumping, and I've had no trouble with it smearing or flaking! Love it!

Friday, June 16, 2006

Greener Grass

I'm back! With another brilliant and incisive personal post.

I keep running into people, myself included (not that I actually run into myself, mind you), who say things along these lines: “I hate my life”; “my life sucks”; “I’ve got to get out of here!” Now, these people are not in what appear to be horrible situations – they have jobs, homes, clothing to wear, food to eat. Most of them also have some spending money for the occasional CD, movie, dinner out, new something-they-don’t-really-need-but-that-makes-them-momentarily-happier. So what gives? Why this miasma of misery? There’s no real reason that I know of that any one of these people (myself included) can’t do something to make themselves happier. And yet they (we) don’t. I wonder why.

Of course, I suspect that some of it is a generational funk. We of the Me Generation and after were not raised to have the stiff upper lip, “theirs not to reason why” attitude. We are, on the whole, soft. And we have the luxury of looking around to see what other people have and what they’re doing and now we have a whole generation trying to keep up with the Joneses. Which is, as we all know, a horrible downward spiral with no happy Disney ending in sight.

But it seems like we do work harder with less to show for it these days, and in some areas you practically have to bankrupt yourself to get your children a decent education (which is sooo not right). I don’t think this is all a keeping-up-with-the-J’s kind of thing. I think we’ve got some serious issues as a nation that no one is willing to address. Oh well, easy for me to say, I guess. I’m not exactly proposing solutions here.

I also think our increased globalization contributes to this free-floating wretchedness. Before TV, who knew that some inexcusable excrescence like Paris Hilton (Lindsay Lohan, Tara Reid, [insert drunken bimbo here]) even existed? Or if we did know, we could be fooled into thinking she actually deserved to live by clever stage managing. Now we have her publicly declaring herself unfit for any place in civilized society every time we turn around, whether it be out of her own mouth, by yet another slit-eyed drunken picture in yet another mimbo’s jet / limo / arms, or simply by the outfit she’s wearing. People like me, relatively normal people who work hard, are honest, and try to do good things, are well on our way to early strokes because of the unfairness of it all. And I think we have a point.

And yet.

I know I could do more with my life that would make me happier and more satisfied. But I feel like I can’t, for some reason. Am I paralyzed by the staggering array of choices I have today? Am I afraid that it wouldn’t be all I had cracked it up to be in my imaginings? Am I simply afraid of failure, that if I fail, I won’t have any money, and then no safety net for when I inevitably have a stray piano fall on my head or catch cancer from a passing public toilet seat?

Sigh. Okay, so I realize I’ve got a little problem here. (And I don't mean catching cancer from a toilet seat. I know that’s not possible. It’s gout from a toilet seat, cancer from burned hotdogs.) What I find interesting is that so many other people I know seem to have the same problem. Why so much dissatisfaction? Why so much anger?

I think we are overcrowded and in too much of a hurry and TV is ruining us all.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Ten Things I Find Undeniably Attractive

10. Capris / Gauchos / Culottes

9. Lingerie as outerwear, including parts, like bra straps; equally attractive: missing lingerie (specifically a slip, a brilliant invention intended to keep your skirt from wadding up between your thighs as you walk)

8. Pants hanging on to your hips/buttocks solely by the grace of God

7. A tongue ring that makes it impossible for you to speak properly

6. Very large tattoos across your pregnant belly

5. Clothing worn two or three sizes too small, when you really don’t have anything to flaunt (or, rather, you have too much)

4. Your Cadillac painted Pepto-Bismol pink

3. Calvin urinating on anything on your rear windshield

2. Git Her Done (or any variant thereof) across your rear windshield

1. Your car proudly proclaiming in large sparkly pink letters:
There Goes Miss Wal-Mart