Annoying Smelly Computer Guys

Occasionally, you get the really awful people who come into the library, and even though it's a public place and everything is free, you wish you could institute some kind of rule to keep people like them out.  Take, for instance, the annoying smelly computer guys.  They are a father / son team.  They come in solely to use the computers, which is fine for people who don't have the internet at home, or people who need to print things out who don't have printers at home...I get it.  Computers are an important resource, and libraries should provide them for free. 

But these guys are just a completely different story.  My main problem?  They come in to use the FREE internet and then COMPLAIN LOUDLY how their computers at home are SOOOO MUCH FASTER THAN THIS.

Seriously guys?  I mean, seriously?  It's FREE.  Go home and use your own stupid internet instead of coming in here and annoying everyone in the building with your nonsense.

So you understand the "annoying" and "computer guys" parts of their name, but there is also the "smelly" bit.  Yeah.  Not only are they totally obnoxious but they smell bad, too.  These are the kind of people there need to be rules about.

NO USING THE FREE COMPUTERS IF YOU ALREADY HAVE ONES AT HOME THAT YOU ARE GOING TO LOUDLY PRONOUNCE TO EVERYONE ARE MUCH BETTER THAN THESE. THAT ARE, ONCE AGAIN, FREE.
ALSO, TAKE A SHOWER.

Yeah, so I have some pet peeves, but can you blame me?  Oh yeah, and on top of all that, the kid once got caught looking at porn on one of our computers.  Guess who saw him?  No, not me.  It was a little five or six year old boy.  Now, as for me, I really have no problem with porn in general, but looking at it on a public computer where you don't know who else is looking is just wrong.  Plus, what are you gonna do?  Jerk off under the table?  Yeah, like no one is gonna notice that.  Go home and use your really fast internet for that stuff, annoying smelly computer guy.

The Dirty Joke

Ok, I've talked about him enough, so here you go: the story of the dirty joke guy. 

He would come in, and even if you didn’t see him, you’d hear him.  He has one of those disgusting smoker coughs, but it was always especially loud and forceful.  And sometimes it would just come out as a strange “AAGHGHH” instead of a real cough.  He would always smile strangely at me and say “Hello!” and sometimes ask me if a movie was good or not.  I was always very polite to him.  One time, he came and found me where I was putting books away and told me about this commercial for a car, with all these little woodland animals singing, and then a wolf shows up and frightens the other animals.  I’m not sure what the point of him telling me about it was, but he went off cackling like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard, followed by several of his signature coughs/weird noises.  One of the circ librarians, who is my supervisor, asked me if I had ever heard his penguin joke.  I said no.  She said that every time he comes up to the counter, if it’s remotely cold out, he makes the same penguin joke.  I finally heard him tell it to her one day.
“Hey!  You know it’s so cold out there, I saw penguins ice skating in the parking lot!!”

The dirty joke incident happened one day when I was walking towards the front of the library, just going past the children’s section, when he intercepted me.

“You want to hear a really funny joke?”

He looked so eager and excited to tell me, I figured, why not? “Ok.”

Now, what made the joke so inappropriate was the fact that we were in a library, in front of the children’s section, and I’m an employee.  It’s not like I haven’t ever heard anything like that before, but when this guy is known for finding a car commercial funny and his big joke is about ice skating penguins, how could I have expected his really funny joke to be about a parrot fucking chickens?  Yes, he said the word “fucking.”  Twice.  In front of children.  Did I mention he’s a little hard of hearing, and talks quite loudly?  Yeah.  It was extremely awkward.  He walked off laughing and wheezing, and I stood there, not entirely sure what to do.  It was not one of my prouder moments.  I felt like everyone was watching me, and another patron went up and complained about his language, but by the time another librarian came over to me, he had already walked away and there was nothing anyone could do.

I avoided him for a long time after that, always finding work to do in the meeting room or in the work room so he couldn’t talk to me.  The other librarians were very understanding and are still always on the lookout to protect me from the creepy people like him.  After a while, I started to feel bad about it though, because he obviously had no idea how tasteless the joke was, and was probably just trying to make me laugh.  I stopped avoiding him but he stopped coming in as often anyway, which is just as well.

If you're curious, here is the joke, without the swearing.  But when it says he "annoys" the neighbors' chickens, well, you know what it really means.