The Crazy Old Lady

One thing about libraries is that they definitely attract weirdos.  Nobody believes this at first.  But trust me, hang around a library long enough, and you will see them.  My favorite nutty, senile old lady is "Betty."

Betty has been a patron of this library at least since I started working there, and I'm assuming she has been coming in for long before then.  I don't want to sound like I'm making fun of her here, because she definitely has some brain meltage resulting in crazy behavior.  This is simply to prove my point that the library isn't full of people sitting quietly at tables reading and whispering to each other.  In case I haven't already proved that with some of these stories about other people...

Anyway, here is one of the first things I remember about Betty.

She asked me, in her non-library voice (ie, VERY LOUDLY- this is her only volume), "WHERE ARE YOUR BOOKS ON MENOPAUSE?" 

I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm pretty sure Betty went through menopause a long time ago.  I obliged and showed her the menopause books, which she proceeded to stare at without taking any off the shelf and then tried to hold a conversation with me.  This can be a very tricky procedure, because typically, she'll start a sentence and trail off without finishing it, and then look at you like she wants you to respond, but you have no idea what to say because all she said was "Well, my cousin, he's really good at....."

I have witnessed other librarians ignoring her when she talks to them, which made me feel bad for her, so I always do my best to hold a conversation with her when she starts one with me.  Here is the best one we've ever had, and this is years ago.  She managed mostly complete sentences throughout the whole thing!

"I was at the grocery store and there's a girl who works at the checkout station and she was hitting on my husband!"
[willing suspension of disbelief, here, people...her husband is a short stocky old man that I'm sure no young woman would ever even think of hitting on]
"Oh wow, Betty.  That's crazy!"
"I know.  She was trying to steal my husband!  So I called her a bitch!"
"No way!"
"Well, I was flirting with the guy who works at the deli there.  You know.  He's married though.  And then he was talking to someone else and I heard them say they have to get rid of me.  Do you think that means they're going to kill me?"
"Oh, no, I'm sure that's not what they meant."
"They said they were going to get rid of me!"
"They probably were just going to ask you to leave."
"Well, you know, you can't trust men.  There's too many women out there!"

And on that note, she walked away.  That may be the last sane thing she ever said.

Will You Marry Me?

I think I'm ready  to tell the story of my two marriage proposals.  This is actually very weird for me to talk about, especially since I consider the guy a friend of mine.  Ever since this whole thing went down, I've tried to keep some distance between us, so hopefully he won't try for a third time.
I first started talking to him years ago.  He would ask me about movies or what websites to visit or whatever.  He seemed nice enough.  Then he asked me to hang out sometime, so I said maybe some day after my shift, we could sit and talk in the library.  It seemed harmless enough.  I mentioned it to one of my co-workers.

"So I'm gonna hang out with that guy, you know the one who comes in here all the time, with the backpack, and he's always really red?"

She knew exactly who I meant and proceeded to tell me that he is not only schizophrenic, but bipolar as well.  Yikes.  She told me more about him and some of the specific issues he deals with.  I decided that I would still hang out with him and just see how it went because he seemed to be a pretty lonely dude, and that made me kind of sad.  It went well, he was definitely a strange guy, but really nice and also very apologetic if he ever said anything he considered to be out of line.  One time, he wrote me an apology letter because he thought he was being too flirtatious with me.  I don't even remember what he said to me, so it wasn't even a big deal, but to him it was.

I have all kinds of stuff he's given me over the years, mostly artwork and poetry, with the occasional letter or CD of stuff he decided to burn for me.  So eventually he invited me over to his apartment, and anytime that happened I wouldn't stay long and always had a reason to leave early if I needed to.  So one time, I was there, and we were talking and watching Youtube videos because we're cool like that, and, out of nowhere, he asked if he could kiss me.  I turned about thirty shades of red and managed to say "Uh...no.  No, I don't think that would be a good idea.  At all."  I left not too long after that.  It just got worse from there.  When I saw him at the library again, we had this really weird conversation.

He said "So, I bought some bling earlier today."
"Oh yeah?"  This struck me as weird because he's not the kind of person who wears "bling," or even says things like "bling," for that matter.
"Yeah.  I bought a diamond engagement ring.  I was hoping you would come over tomorrow, so I can ask you to marry me.  What do you think?"
Naturally, I thought he was joking, so I laughed and just said "Yeah sure whatever."

He wasn't joking.

I didn't go over to his apartment, obviously, but he called me the next day and left me these really long messages.  The first one was about us getting married and spending our lives together.  The second one was more along the lines of NEVER MIND, NEVER MIND, IT WAS A BAD IDEA, I'M RETURNING THE RING, SORRY.  So weird.  Then I checked my email and found this ridiculous, overblown message from him (from before he changed his mind, of course).  It was really uncomfortable to read.  He kept going on about our "relationship" and how he couldn't wait for me to be his wife and all this weird religious stuff.  I still get the chills when I think about it...

So that was that.  I never actually said anything to him, but I guess ignoring a person gets the message through.  He stopped coming in on the days that I worked for a really long time.  Months later though, he came in and talked to me but it was excruciatingly awkward, at least for me.  But we started talking more, and eventually things got back to normal. 

About a year later from the first proposal, he came in one day and was acting strange around me, which for him is kind of the usual.  But he was being really short with me and not smiling so I knew something was up.  Then he asked me for help finding a book in the back, and at that point I knew something bad was going to happen, just from the way he was talking to me and acting.  We walked over and he started looking at books, but then turned to me and said "I need to know this right now, so that I can move on with my life, either way, but I just want to know if you will take my hand in marriage.  Will you marry me?" 
Talk about being caught off guard.  I mean, I knew something was up, but really?  A SECOND TIME?  I looked at him and said "no."  And he just said "Ok.  Thank you.  Ok."  And walked away.  And that was that.  I didn't see him for a long time after that, too.  Just recently he came in on a day that I was covering for someone else, so it wasn't my usual day to be there and he started talking to me, I think mostly out of nervousness.  But it was alright.  Pretty soon things got back to how they used to be.  We're cool right now, he likes it when I recommend books for him to read and he tries to give me advice on how to take better care of myself because I pretty much never sleep.  He's always offering to bring me coffee, too, which is nice.

After that second time he asked me though, I have to tell you, I was 99% ready to just quit my job and get the hell out of the library.  It just wasn't worth it to me anymore.  I'm glad I hung in there though.

How I Had the Potential to Become a Homewrecker, But Refrained

I'm pretty sure everyone who reads this knows how much I love reading, and I love it when other people read, and I really love it when parents read to their kids.  This is why I became smitten with this one fellow who came into the library almost every day with his son.  He sat on the floor with his kid and read to him, was very patient when he was interrupted with questions of "What's that?" and such, and was really the only parent I saw interacting with his child that way.  It's pretty sad, if you think about it, that there is one dad in my town who really cares about his kid that much, but that's not really the point of this story.

Oh, and besides being a really awesome dad, he is ridiculously handsome.

Can you blame me for always making a point of putting away children's books while they were in that room?  Don't think of it as me being creepy.  Just think of it as me making my job more enjoyable; remember how boring libraries can be?  Anyway, he started talking to me, just small talk really.  So it got to the point where he always said hi and asked how I was doing and such.  You know, made comments on how quickly I put things away (even though I usually made sure I took my time in there...ahem...) and other equally exciting things. 

So you can imagine my surprise when one day, he came over to me and asked what my plans were for the following evening and would I want to come over and have pizza with him and his son.  What what??  I couldn't believe it.  I told him I would be working at my other job until kind of late, but if that was ok, then I could come over after, and he said ok, and gave me a piece of paper with his number on it.

Score one for me!  But I knew there had to be some kind of catch.

I called him from work the next day.  We confirmed plans, he said by the time I got there his son would probably be asleep, but that was ok.  Then I bit the bullet.

"Ok, that sounds good.  But um...well...I don't want to be weird or anything...but...aren't you married?"
"Oh.  Yeah.  Yeah, I am.  You know what, you're right, maybe we shouldn't do this.  You seem really nice.  I'm sorry."

And then he hung up on me.  I was disappointed times about a million.

I mean, I'm glad I didn't go over and do anything and find out later, because that would have been awful, too.  But this was certainly unpleasant. 

One more reason working at the library is a dangerous job.

Little Kids Can Be Jerks

The shirt I wore to work yesterday was kinda loosey goosey, which was a bad idea, as you will see from the following story.

The first thing I did was put away children's books, so I was in that room with my cart, and I leaned forward to grab some books without thinking about what my shirt was doing.  When I stood up, there was this kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, staring with these big bug eyes.  Then he looked up, right at me, got this really smug look on his face, and then trotted away, occasionally looking back at me with that dumb smug look.  Little perv dude was totally looking down my shirt!!

I felt so besmirched.

These are a few of my favorite things....

...or, you know, things that make my job less annoying, or just bearable on certain days.

1. Carrying a clipboard; it makes me feel approximately ten times smarter, for whatever reason.  That is just the magic of clipboards.
2. I am given a list of books that are 60 days overdue and it is my job to check the shelves to see if they got put away without getting checked in.  The chances of actually finding one on the shelf?  Slim.  So how do you think it makes me feel when I find one on the shelf?  Awesome!
3. I have just reorganized/shifted/shelf-read an entire section.  Now I get to stand there and admire my handiwork before it gets ruined. 
4. Someone comes in looking for something and they looked kind of stressed out.  "I need books on child support.  Like legal guidance for child support."  I love being able to say "Right over here!" and see the look of relief on their face.  This happens even with less important things, like "Where are the Junie B. Jones books?" and they get crazy excited when I point them out.
5. Sometimes, all it takes is a baby making goo goo eyes at me and smiling.  I realize this could happen anywhere, it doesn't have to be at the library, but getting those looks while I'm working makes them even better.
6. At the end of the day, shutting down the computers... It means I get to go home soon and there is something very satisfying about hitting ctrl-alt-delete over and over again.  Who knows why.  This also reminds me of Kris every single time I do it, which makes me sad but happy.
7. Sneaking in reading while I'm working.  You have no idea how often I actually do this.  Once, I even read the entire first chapter of Dracula that was deleted from the final copy of the book, but is in several collections of horror stories.  I love Dracula, and I didn't know there was a deleted chapter until I saw it in one of those books as I was shelf reading, and I couldn't help myself!  No one saw me and told me to stop, which made the whole thing even better.
8. Watching parents read to their kids.  This is surprisingly rare.  Even more rare is a parent reading to their kid, and the kid is paying attention.  I've seen them give up partway through a book because the kid can't sit still and just wants to play the computer games (shudder...).  So when I see a parent, sitting with their child, reading out loud, and the kid is interested, following along, laughing, etc, it's one of the best things in the world.
9. There is this one old lady who comes in frequently, and she compliments me on what a good job I'm doing, and always tells me to have a nice day.  She's always pleasant.  Always smiling.  I wish there were more people like her out there.
10. Book smell.  You know how new books have a good smell?  I like that.  I don't like the semi-old books that have that weird, old person, did-someone-pee-on-this kind of smell.  I LOVE old old book smell.  Those really old, musty books...sigh.  There is one in particular in the library, printed sometime in the 20s, it's Florence Nightingale's notes or something like that, and it smells AMAZING.  I guess it's kind of gross to sniff old books, but hey, I never said I was classy like that.

Old Men & Chick Books

When old men come into the library to look at books and NOT ask me out on dates, I love it.  Old men are awesome.  Especially the cranky ones. 

The other day, this old man was in looking at large print books, which is where I was busy organizing and such.  He made sure he wouldn't be in my way, hung his cane on the shelf and made sure that it wasn't in my way either, and then pulled out a typed up packet of papers and started looking at books and comparing them to his papers.  He told me that he has to type up all of the books that he reads so he doesn't read the same ones twice.  Makes sense.  I don't know what it is about me, but I usually mind my own business, but it doesn't stop people from talking freely to me anyway.  I don't mind, really, but I know I don't strike up conversations with people just because they're in a five foot radius of my body for an extended period of time.  Anyway, he says "My son gives me a hard time about the books I read.  He calls them 'chick books.'"  He points to the books he is currently going throuh and choosng from.  "These here, written by Debbie Macomber."
While part of me was thinking "Ha!  Your son is right!  Those ARE chick books, what the hell, dude?" the rest of me was thinking what I actually said out loud to him: 
"Well, if it makes you happy, then who cares, right?" 
And he said "That's exactly what I say to him."

We had a little moment.  It was pretty cute.

So, what I was doing while I was organizing was pulling books off the shelves from other libraries to make more room because they were getting really packed.  We keep other libraries' books within  the county on our shelves, but when it gets too crowded, I see no point in having them there.  So I told him "The top two rows of my cart here are full of books I'm sending back to the owning libraries, if you want to look through them before I take them away."

I went off to do some work somewhere else so I wouldn't get in his way.  But he made a point of telling me that he took two off my cart, and thanks for telling him.

While he was up checking out, I noticed he left his list of books sitting on the shelf.  I picked it up to return to him, and all I can say is WOW.  That was one hefty packet.  Dude reads A LOT.  I wonder if he's into Fern Michaels and Danielle Steel too!  I didn't peek though.

Summer Reading

Summer reading has taken its toll on me.  There is always about ten times more work to do in the summer than the rest of the year.  And it annoys me that we bribe kids to read with toys and candy and stickers and what not.  Come on people, when I was your age, I looked forward to summer reading because I like to read!  Not because I wanted to win prizes!  This was months of free time for reading without school getting in the way!  Anyway, the extreme workload makes me very tired and cranky and this is why I've been out of commission for a while now. 

However, I have more fun stories to tell.

Here is one of them.

Talking to kids is usually the greatest thing ever, because the ones who aren't shy are so uninhibited, they'll tell you all kinds of stuff you didn't want to know.

This kid was in a few weeks ago, and he was kind of talking to himself, but in a way that I could tell he wanted me to overhear.  He kept saying "Oh, man, I have to get this out for my sister!  She'll have to read it!"  He then explained to me that if he gives her a book, she is compelled to read it, even if she thinks it looks stupid.  So he will purposely pick out things that he knows she doesn't like, just so she is forced to read it through her own compulsions.  How deliciously evil.  I like this kid already.

Then he told me how she gets really into books and will throw fits if something happens in the book that she doesn't like.  At this point, I thought, "I kind of want to meet this girl!  She sounds like she might be slightly insane, and I like that!"  He then went on to explain to me that when one of her favorite characters got killed off in a series that she was reading, she got so mad she threw the book just as he was walking in the room and it hit him in the head so hard that it knocked him out.  He seems like the type to exaggerate and/or make things up, but I decided to believe this story simply because it was too good not to.  I said "Wow, she must really be into those books."
"Yeah, she always reacts that way when she's reading stuff."
"Has she ever done anything more extreme than throw a book at you?"
He thought about it for a bit and then said "Does locking herself in her room and crying for six hours count as more extreme?"

Heck yeah it does!  I can't wait to meet this girl.