My goodness, you've fallen down a well.

Slow, nasal mumbling preceded the utterance of, "Never mind, I'll make him look it up. He looks smart." I pretended not to hear, hoping the walk to the ref desk would be a deterrent. I finished reading the sentence I was on in the news, then ventured a glance at the reference floor in general.

"That's right," said a man looking for all the world like Baby Huey in that unique sides-of-the-head-shaved mullet that virtually requires the wearer to be a bigger fan of Metallica than any person should be, "I'm talking about you."

Is it weird how much I enjoy using run-on sentences? Never mind.

"Look up The Doors," the distinguished gentleman ordered my computer monitor, looking and pointing past my shoulder at the screen. My previous post indicated how well I tend to deal with this sort of person, but as the library had been open for exactly 24 minutes at this point, this-- we'll call it a question, though it clearly isn't-- this was only the third stupid question I'd been asked so far this morning, and I wasn't yet feeling broken down by the weight of my town's collective idiocy.

Sidebar: One of the two other stupid questions I'd been asked prior to the one about The Doors was "Where is the computers?" Not "where's," which, though incorrect, is an understandable lazy contrivance of speech, but "where is," with the word "is" enunciated as though calculated to accentuate the incorrectness of the query.

Fresh-faced as I was, I asked, "What exactly do you want to know about The Doors?"
He rolled his eyes. He actually rolled his eyes.
"Like, yer books?" he minced.
"Like, which books we have about The Doors? Is that what you're trying to find out?"
"Yeah."
I turned to the computer. I know we have No One Here Gets Out Alive, but searching for Doors, The Doors, or Doors, The, under subject or under subject keyword returns nothing. I try looking for Morrison, Jim under subject, telling Baby Headbanger "Nothing is showing up, I'm going to see if I can find anything on Jim Morrison."

"Holy sh**," he blurted out, "did I just..."
I looked up, waiting on our excruciatingly slow catalog. His jaw was quite slack.
"I can't believe you know Jim Morrison. Like, about nobody knows who The Doors are."
He can't be serious. "I'm pretty sure," I say slowly, turning back to the catalog, "everybody knows The Doors." Honestly, even if you haven't heard them on the radio, (in this area they're still in very regular FM rotation Despite the nearly 40 years since the death of their singer,) or from a friend, (lots of stoners around here, and half of them have Doors stickers on their cars--I think it's the visual equivalent of a secret handshake,) then you might have noticed the movie about them. It was pretty low profile, I mean it only starred Val Kilmer and Meg Ryan in the 90s, but it's possible you stumbled across a copy somewhere, right?
Maybe not.
"Hell, nobody I know. Ain't nobody heard of them."

I thought about this for a moment. I wondered if introducing him to genuinely obscure music would shock him. I pondered the implications of this man thinking of a band whose status in popular culture was once like unto living gods... as obscure. I asked myself what that means for digital distribution of independent artists, and for the Creative Commons movement, and I thought for the briefest of moments of telling him about these musicians who just give their music away, and how I can guarantee none of his friends have heard of any of them, I thought it would positively blow his itty-bitty mind.

I entertained these thoughts all within a fraction of a second, ending with the realization that it would culminate in a discussion about nerd-core, I'd inevitably force him to listen to MC Frontalot, letting him in on a secret that would grant him membership to a club so exclusive, so niche-y, so tiny that, judging by suggested market saturation for podcasts, numbers at most fewer than 200,000 people world-wide, and he'd glaze over and wander out, drooling and mumbling about geeks.
I told him I'd found two books about Jim Morrison, that they were both checked out, and that I could reserve them. He shook his head and left.

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone (or when she's here)

The advent of Spring is always a delight--birds singing, flowers blooming, and a blessedly quieter-than-usual library. There are days when I actually get some work accomplished. But yesterday's gloomy weather brought in some new folks--and I have little doubt that they'll become regulars.

The transaction went like this:

I was sitting at the desk, obviously doing work on the computer (and it was legitimate library work!) when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a family coming closer to the desk. I stopped my typing & looked up to see a Grizzly Adams type veer off in my direction while his wife & child headed off towards the bank of computers. Before I had a chance to "greet" him, I heard this:

"Hello Sunshine"

Let me make this perfectly clear--I am not a Sunshine. Even on my best days, when the male patron with great legs (yes, unfortunately, there's only one) comes in wearing shorts, I do not radiate sunshine-iness. And I certainly do not want total strangers who look like they just came out of winter's hibernation addressing me with such familiarity. But I was brought up by a mother who would not tolerate rude behavior so I bit my tongue & asked (with no sunshine in my voice), "can I help you?"

Which I did & he was quite excited when I found the "campfire cookbooks" he wanted (all the time keeping the oh so clever remarks to myself). I left him in the stacks & made my escape.

Until he returned to the desk: "Thanks Sunshine!"

And still I refrained from letting loose with all the ferocity associated with a F5 tornado.

So did I get rewarded for my good behavior with a visit from the male patron with the great legs?

Of course not--ain't no justice here either.

Would you like fries with that?

Sometimes, once in a while, I'm legitimately unhelpful. Not hostile, but unwilling to extend more help than a patron asks for. There is generally a reason for it, and the vast majority of the time, the patron in question is the reason.

For example:
If you, the reader, were to walk into the library, situate yourself in front of the catalog, loudly smacking your gum as you stare at the screen, obviously confused, and if, when I attempted to ask "Can I help you find something?" you only allowed me to say "Can" before you blurted out, hypothetically speaking, "Uh you not have Brother Odd b' Dean Koontz?," enunciating each syllable in a manner more staccato, more flouncy, and more indignant than the preceding, and if, when I tell you that yes, we do, then look at your screen and suggest looking for the title Brother Odd instead of the subject Brother Odd you, oh I don't know, let's say you insisted that "Uh already did!" despite the fact that the catalog very clearly says subject, then changed it to title, narrowed your eyes and smirked at me when it now shows up, then crestfallen, you realize it's checked out and ask if it's the only copy, if all of that should occur...

Then no, no I will not offer to put it on reserve for you. If you asked me to, I'd do it, but I'm not going to volunteer it. I know, I clearly have a bad attitude, but if you can't be nice to me even once during our entire exchange, it really kills my motivation to go out of my way for you. Ask any of the people for whom I do go above and beyond. You can tell who they are, because they're semi-regular here, and they look happy. They look happy because they know they'll leave either with what they came for, or with a promise that they'll have it soon. And they always get one of those options, even if it's not easy, because they treat me like a person.

On a side note, if you treat me like the hypothetical person in the beginning of the story, I have to assume you treat other service people that way as well. The knowledge that you have that sort of disdain for people, and that you treat people in a disrespectful manner like that tells me something you don't know about yourself. I think I should share it with you. Every time you go to (Insert Generic Megalithic Fast-Food Chain Here), you eat somebody's spit. Sorry, it's not mine, so there's nothing I can do about it. You know how you can put a stop to that? I'll give you three guesses.