So it has been over a month since I last “rapped at ya”, but my summer is finally settling down and I think I’m back to blogging more regularly. The following is just a small sampling of the delights that await me each day at my job at the library reference desk. While the details of the questions have been changed (I can’t remember the exact latin phrases used during the attempted exorcism, etc), the dialogue is otherwise completely unembellished (though there is perhaps a bit of hyperbole in my commentary). So for those who don’t know, here’s a little peek into what my workplace is really like. Again, these are all real questions, answered by myself, a trained professional.
A typical computer question.
I am working downstairs at the library computer lab when a fairly respectable looking man in his mid to late forties rushes down the stairs and heads straight for my desk.
WORRIED MAN
(franticly)
OK. We’ve got a problem.
ME
(cautiously)
And what’s that?
WORRIED MAN
(cautiously)
Ok. Ok, here’s the deal. I just got a computer, and am trying to figure things out. You know that little bar in your internet where you type in where you want to go?
ME
(curiously)
Yes?
WORRIED MAN
(growing-more-brave-er-ly)
And next to that there is the little arrow that if you click on it you can see the other places that you have interneted?
ME
(comprehension-dawningly)
Yes?
WORRIED MAN
(finally-unabashedly)
Well, I need to figure out how to erase all of those, and I have 45 minutes until my wife comes home from work to do it!
Taking pity on a poor soul in need, I explain the wonders of Tools/Internet Options/Clear History. I go home knowing that I have done my small part to make the world a happier place.
It’s like pulling teeth!
A whithered old lady shuffles towards my desk bringing with her the pungent odor of bottled roses.
CRONE
(hazily)
Hello young fellow, I’m looking for the history section.
ME
(helpfully)
Sure, that’s all downstairs, but it is a pretty big section, is there a specific book you are looking for?
CRONE
(only mildly less hazily)
Oh, just the history section…well I guess the War History section, but I can find that.
ME
(continuingly helpfully)
Well is there any particular war you are interested in, there are a lot of books downstairs.
CRONE
(somewhat annoyed-ing-ly)
Well, just point me in the World War II section and I can find it from there.
ME
(determinedly)
Well that would be the 940’s, but that is still a couple shelves, you didn’t have any particular book or subject in mind?
CRONE
(reluctantly)
Well I guess it would be eastern front.
ME
(forcefully)
It? Are you sure there isn’t just one book you are looking for?
CRONE
(matter-of-fact-ly)
Well yeah, I’m looking for Hitler’s Panzers East: World War II Reinterpreted, by R.H.S. Stolfi, but like I said, you can just point me in the direction of the history books and I can find it myself…I’m not helpless you know!
ME
(resignedly)
940.5241 STO
I think sadly to myself that this exchange is a pretty typical library interaction.
It’s just a movie.
A slight fellow with square glasses accompanied by a much larger companion approach my desk. They smell strongly of the basement of either their mother’s house or the science building. In a high nasally voice the gaunt fellow addresses me.
NERD 1
(bemusedly)
Why yes, hello there, my companion and I require a book that you may have located among the shelves of this institution.
NERD 2
(superiorly)
Though frankly I doubt THIS library would carry this book.
ME
(wearily)
So what book are you looking for?
NERD 1
(proudly)
I believe its most common name is Tobins Spirit Guide, though we would not be surprised were it to have other names as well.
I search our catalog to no avail. Then, with the sinking feeling of someone who has been known to give his phone number as “312-ZUUL” and should have known better, I stop my searching.
ME (aka NERD 3)
(groaningly)
Where did you hear about this book?
NERD 2
(haughtily)
I believe you may know of it from the movie Ghostbusters, though there are surely many more references to this manual in other places.
ME
(straight facedly)
Actually, that is just a movie. I don’t think there is a real Tobin’s Spirit Guide out there.
NERD 1
(doggedly)
Well, we don’t know that for sure, but perhaps it is not here. Can I have an interlibrary loan form?
When they leave and I’m sure no one is looking, I do a google search for “Tobin’s Spirit Guide”…you know, just to be sure.
Attempted Exorcism
A hooded, robe covered woman bearing a 2 foot crucifix and a bible in a wicker basket makes her way to the reference desk. She has the milky, soulless eyes of a dead snake and the room grows colder upon her approach.
SCARY CATHOLIC
(intones)
Praise be Jesus and Mary!
There is an awkward silence as I try to determine which of “Fine and you?”, “Pretty good, yours?” or “Low and to the left.” is a suitable response to this confusing greeting.
SCARY CATHOLIC (CONT’D)
I am looking for information on the sacred Saint Blackagar Boltagon. He has three memoirs, the most famous of which deals with his ascension to the holy house of Attilan in the year of our lord 1200.
ME
(doubtful)
Ok, let me see what I can find.
After failing to find anything in the library catalog I turn to the internet to see if the book actually exists. I notice movement out of the corner of my eye. Apparently either asking for divine guidance for my google search or fearing a hidden vampiric nature, she had been holding her inappropriately large crucifix over me as I typed.
ME
(indignant)
Please don’t do that.
She sets the cross down and proceeds to look at something on the wall directly behind my head.
SCARY CATHOLIC
(creepily)
Have you found anything my child?
ME
(exasperatedly)
The closest thing I can find is a Saint Black from like 1300, but I don’t see any published memoirs.
SCARY CATHOLIC
(irritatedly)
No, no, not Saint Black of course, let me see what that says though.
She yanks the screen towards herself and reads an account of Saint Black who apparently spoke in tongues and then flew around his church to the delight of congregation. She then turns back to me with a very serious look in her soul suckingly blank eyes.
SCARY CATHOLIC (CONT’D)
(unstably)
Ah yes Saint Black has displayed the most holy transformation of Terrigenesis. You do know that THIS REALLY HAPPENED!!! right???
ME
(as-if-ly)
I highly doubt it.
SCARY CATHOLIC
(increasingly scarily)
It did happen! This is real! IT ISN’T MADE UP. In this particular case the miracle was witnessed by THE ENTIRE CONGREGATION!!! And when he had flown through the seventh rafter there was a silence in the house of God for the space of half an hour. And at the end of this silence the father of the flock stepped forward and recited…
Seeing my increasingly skeptical look, she seizes her cross and holds it between us again.
SCARY CATHOLIC (CONT’D)
(maniacly)
LOOK AT ME, this is important! The Priest stepped forward and recited…IN LATIN of course…THREE times:
agna mos orior ex armentum vereor pro ira of deus…
Slamming her free hand on the desk she continues to recite while a strange lightness of being comes over me. The corners of my eyesight grow dark while all other sounds fall to a gentle buzzing at the edges of my consciousness. There is only the Scary Catholic’s voice and a strange feeling of sinking into a mire of liquid earth.
SCARY CATHOLIC (CONT’D)
(incantationly)
agna mos orior ex armentum vereor pro ira of deus…
Her clouded eyes bore through my head as she continues. I struggle to fight the hypnotic pull of her creepy Jesus spell.
SCARY CATHOLIC (CONT’D)
(I-will-eat-your-soul-ish-ly)
AGNA MOS ORIOR EX ARMENTUM…
Somewhere, as a memory buried just beneath the brittle surface of the past, the sacred words of Manowar’s song Metal Warriors: “There’s magic in the metal….THERE’S MAGIC IN US ALL!” break me from my trance. I pull my eyes from her hypnotic gaze.
ME
(bravely)
So…is there anything else I can help you with?
I eventually get her to go away.
Did that just happen?
A lady wearing a “God Don’t Make No Trash” T-Shirt finds her way to the reference desk.
LADY
(seriously)
What’s the difference between fiction and nonfiction?
ME
(speechlessly)
…
Yes, that just happened.
3 Comments
Earlier I had a regular-patron ask me if I could do a math problem for her to see if she did her work correctly. I worked out the problem on the calculator and gave her the total. Since the results weren’t the same as hers, she told me I was wrong (even though I used a calculator and she used chicken scratches). That guy from earlier also came up to the desk, asked for paper, and promptly let another loud one rip. I’m pretty sure everyone turned to look while at him while I held my breathe. You should definitely update this one. I’m sure you’ve seen alot more in the last 6 years.
The sad thing is, I think I’m getting too used to the stories. Like the dude that got kicked out for jerking off behind the reference desk last month…I didn’t even tell anyone that story for a few days until I remembered that kind of thing doesn’t normally happen at people’s workplaces.
I didn’t hear that one. As long as its not happening to me, its funny.