And Jesus said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his [accomplishments]." And he told them a parable, saying, "The [mind] of a rich [wo]man produced plentifully, and [s]he thought to [her]self, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my [thoughts]?' And [s]he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my [blog] and build [a more accomplished one], and there I will store all my [thoughts] and my [writings]. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample [publications and a great reputation]; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' But God said to [her], 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."

Saturday, April 9, 2011

More library anecdotes

Thursday, a pair of brothers troop into the library. One is my age. The other informs me that he is 13. I am thankful, because I might have embarrassed him by guessing 10. These prepubescent kids throw me off. A 9-year-old with boobs came in weeks ago, rented Saw V and asked if I liked my boys with or without a shirt. I said, "with" and smiled. In my mind I said, Where are your parents?

Presently the 13-year-old and my 50-year-old co-worker are having a serious and adamant discussion about zombies, as if talking politics. Then he shows me a duct tape wallet he made with the help of a YouTube video. I say, "You should make me one." The brothers leave and return an hour later with four roles of duct tape (electric pink, highlighter yellow, shocking green and regular gray). A half hour later, I am the proud owner of an autographed duct tape wallet.

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Friday, I pick up the phone when it rings. I'm all "Hi Mentor Public Library your destination for information this is the Lake branch how can I help you?" and the woman on the other end of the line sounds like she's losing composure quick.

"Do you have Josh Groban?" she says, real fast and nervous.

I'm flustered. "One moment." I hold the phone with my chin, type GROBAN, JOSH into the search engine and scroll through the database.

While I place holds, she explains: "My son died yesterday. Heroine overdose. I'm selecting music for his funeral."

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Other things happen. A woman filling out an online job application can't figure out what buttons to hit. She is buzzed with excitement: a grocery clerk position! I keep a little boy busy doing puzzles while his mom peruses DVDs. "Which is the biggest?" I say, in reference to the animal puzzle pieces. He points to the cow. "Which ones live in the water?" He points to the penguin and the turtle. I give him a high five and tell him how smart he is.

My co-worker tries to set me up with a patron (who is actually very attractive). "He's nice, you're nice. What else is there to think about?" I laugh and look up his record in the computer. You can tell a lot about a person by the materials they check out. Library records can probably also tell you whether or not two people will be compatible. We could run a dating service through the library, I say. I am pronounced a genius and all the lonely unhappy people live happily ever after with other lonely unhappy people.

In between helping patrons, my coworker and I swap stories about family, friends, former jobs -- everything. She puts her arm across my shoulders and proclaims to a patron, "This is my long lost daughter!"I take my two 15-minute breaks and my 30-minute lunch. I shelve and weed and shelve-read. I come home and sleep deep dreamless dreams.

2 comments:

  1. haha a dating service run by the library would totally work! you really can tell a lot about a person by what/how much they read.

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  2. Wow. Sounds like you meet some really interesting people at the library! I never would have guessed our uni lib had such characters. You should submit these stories to "not always right" a website where employees share about weird customers. :D I wanna see your new wallet!

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