The number one question I get at the reference desk: "Where's the bathroom?"The number two question: "Where are all the books? If this is a library, where are the books at?" Well, they're under...
If you're a librarian, you know why that's corny, but it always makes tourists laugh. Anyway, the tour passes, it's rather peaceful in here when all of a sudden this horrific, shrill, blood-curdling voice screams "I CAN'T FUCKING TAKE IT! SHUT UP ALREADY, PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO WORK UP HERE!"
Jesus Christ! She sounded like The Wicked Witch of the West if the witch were insane, in withdrawl, PMSing, and being brutally tortured all at once.
It scared the hell out of me. I turned around to see what was going on, and nothing was out of the ordinary. Nobody was standing up seething with rage like I expected. Nobody was even whispering "What the fuck was that?" to anyone. It was as if things like that happen all the time around here like "Oh, that's just Crazy Martha. Don't worry, she only sounds like a ravenous, soul-sucking banshee. Really, she just has a lot of feelings."
No, these were not feelings. Happiness is a feeling. Anger is a feeling. This was an episode.
I asked a coworker later what on earth had happened, and she told me this woman just does that every now and then. But she assured me I had nothing to worry about because the woman is small, and if I felt threatened, I could just knock her on the head and she'd fall over. We laughed at this for a moment, and then I walked by the woman's desk to see what she looked like. I had never seen her before, and she looked as you'd expect from hearing such an outburst: dirty, unbrushed hair, pale skin, crazy eyes... she was a crazy straight out of a cartoon or a Dilbert comic strip. So if one day I don't come home from work, it's because I've been taken hostage by a raving office stereotype and the only one who can save me is Scott Adams.
What happened to classic "Shhhh, this is a library?" Maybe this woman is the next generation.
No comments:
Post a Comment