little scamp

I have one class that comes to the library every week.  They're second-graders, super cute, the kids really like me and like coming to the library except for the fact that we NEVER have Diary of a Wimpy Kid books for them to take out.

The kids were lining up to leave with their two books each today when the teacher asked one of the girls to unzip her jacket.  Like 20 books fell out.  I was so impressed, both by the girl for thinking she could get away with this heist and the teacher for immediately noticing.

Never a dull day.

say hello to your friends

It's been quiet here at scuttlebuttering, and I apologize for that.  Life has gotten away from me, what can I tell you.  Today's post isn't groundbreaking, but its hopefully a start of more blogging to come.

Today I was cleaning up the foreign language books in the kid's room when I came upon this French Baby-Sitter's Club book:

Some thoughts:

1.)What, what, what are they wearing?

2.) When did Stonybrook become a slum?

3.) What is the title of this book?  My limited french leads me to think it's Mary Anne and the Sadness?  I don't think that's right.  But it does look pretty depressing judging from this cover.

I so wish there were more.

happy birthday to me

I sometimes get a bit of a hard time because I take my birthday very seriously.  I like to have a party and get all my favorites to celebrate.  And the fact that they're celebrating me isn't such a bad thing :)

However, one of my co-workers has taken celebrating one's birthday to a new level.  She's been talking about her birthday for about a week now, and apparently yesterday sent out an email to a few of our co-workers (I was not on the email - this was a smart move on her part) with a list of things she would like from them for her birthday.  Number 2 on list?  Cash.  I would give everything to see this email as I bet I would laugh until I hurt.

Today, she brought in a few things to celebrate her birthday, including flowers...

...as well as cake and a card for everyone to sign.  For herself.

These are excellent ways to get people to care about your birthday whether they want to or not, and believe me I am taking notes for next year.

Newsy News

Hey Gang!

Nothing terribly exciting has been going on in my life lately, so the blog has been quiet.  I did recently have another run in with super long fingernail man and my boss wore his jumpsuit again, but I feel like these are going to be regular occurrences.

I guess the only change is that I'm going to be making a small job change.  I am soon going to be the childrens librarian at my branch, not the young adult librarian!  I am hopeful that this change will be less stressful and just more fun.  I can do more crafts and things that I like and will hopefully get more interest in those things!

My mother thinks it's important that I wear costumes as a children's librarian because she says that's what my children's librarian did when I was growing up.  I don't quite remember that, but I'm always happy to wear a costume!  My mother has already supplied this beauty:

Gorg.

So I think I'm off to a good start.

Ughewwwwwwwwwww

I can't post a good visual for this one because I might throw up.

I was just helping a patron with super super super super gross gross gross long fingernails on the computer and one of his talons touched my hand.

I almost wept.

i can't even handle

Guys, it's a Monday morning.  I was a little grumpy until I saw my boss a moment ago.  'Cause his outfit today gave me a serious case of the giggles.  And I can't even find a good photo representation for you to share in the ridiculousness.

At first glance, it was fairly inocuous.  Blue pants and shirt under a tan blazer.  But what's that you say?  Those aren't blue pants and shirt?  That's a polyester jumpsuit?

Yep.  It sure is.

I die.

great start

Thanks for all the congrats about the new addition to our family!  I can't wait to meet my niece or nephew.

I had some excitement at work this morning not too long after I got here, which I hope doesn't portend bad things for the rest of the day.  There's been a dude coming in and causing some trouble here for the past two weeks or so.  He seems a bit off, and everyone on the staff has had some interactions with him.  Yesterday the janitor told me that this guy comes to the library at about 8am (when we open at 10) and continuously asks if the library is open and isn't it 10 already.  So that's how he starts the day.

At the library, we have one computer with unfiltered access to the internet, and then 11 computers with filtered access in the adult room.  The filtered computers really don't filter out all the much - I have certainly never been blocked from any website.  Patrons are allowed to use the computer for an hour, and if they are all in use, they can sign up for a reservation and wait until one is free.  For the filtered computers, the wait is usually only 5-10 minutes.  But for the unfiltered computer, it can be an hour or two, depending on how many people sign up to use it.  This dude only wants to use the unfiltered computer, and even though he comes right when the library opens, he sometimes ends up sitting and waiting for HOURS until he can get on it.  And I found out why at our staff meeting yesterday - he likes to watch porn at the library.

Super awesome.

He has also spent some time hanging out in the children's room as well as at the children's storytime - both of which or huge no's if you don't have a child in the room or at the program.

And this morning, when of course I was in charge, he sat down at a table across from a young woman on her laptop and stared at her.  Just stared, unblinking.  For a long time.  She, of course, got creeped out and moved to a different part of the library.  He continued to sit for awhile, and then of course, followed her.  Not good.  I had been observing, waiting until he crossed the line and I could ask him to leave and this was definitely it.  I told him he had to leave for the day because there had been complaints about his behavior (which was true, the young lady told the library assistant that she was really freaked out) and he denied doing anything and said they were lies.  I continued to say he had to leave or I would have to call the police, and at first he said that I should call them because they would send me to jail for lying.  OK.  I was still willing to call them and he finally got up and moseyed over to the door.

So hopefully that will be all the excitement we have here today and really hopefully this guy will stop coming here because he makes us nervous.

Fun Thursday!

i know what's next...

on my to-read list.

they do exist!

Today someone came into the library and asked for help getting her documents off of her floppy disk!  I haven't seen one of those in 10 years.  And what was more amazing - the computer she signed on to use had a floppy disk drive!

One more thing we'll have to explain to our children

classic

The sidewalk is my pillow.

economy boost

I'm glad to see the hair pick industry is still thriving these days.

 My grandmother would be so proud.

Number or hair picks in use in the YA room at this moment: 3.

And there are only 6 people in here.

so they're not alive?

There's a woman who works here part-time and I have trouble figuring out what exactly her job is, other than trying to do other people's jobs.  She got into a huge argument with a temporary librarian my first week here and made the biggest deal of it and was smack talking this librarian to the other people working here.  Highly professional.  I do not care very much for this woman, because, again, I don't think she actually does her job and she keeps trying to interfere with mine.  She has roped kids into doing her work for her, she yells at the teens when I don't think they're doing anything wrong, and she's just kind of a busybody.

But, man, is she fascinated and confused by zombies.  Each month I have been setting up a display based on a theme for that month.  April is National Poetry Month, so I set up a display of poetry books in the YA section.  And this month, I was having trouble finding a good theme, until I read somewhere that May is Zombie Awareness Month.  I thought that was pretty awesome and something the kids might dig, so I collected a bunch of books and movies about zombies and set up my display.

Apparently, this woman has never heard of zombies before so every time she comes in she asks me more questions about them.  She doesn't understand that they are undead, confuses them with vampires, and asks me if this is something that kids like.  The questions have been going on for a month, and it's like talking to a 4 year old, I really don't know how to answer them anymore.  She keeps bringing me books and asks if they're about zombies.  Today she told me she did some research on them and found out that they come back from the dead and was so proud of herself for knowing that factoid.

It's just been a bit bizarre and she won't let it go, so I'm rather looking forward to May being over.  I hope my next display isn't as confusing.

What is a zombie?

bootylicious

I was just yelled at by an extremely agitated older male patron because two of the pictures of Beyonce that he had printed off of the internet did not print out as he wanted. 

I had a difficult time understanding what he wanted me to do.  It seemed that he wanted reimbursement for how the pictures came out, but as I was pretty sure they came out incorrectly due to user error and not through any fault of our equipment, I was not going to do that.  However, he was quick to inform me that he's got a $40,000 car out in the parking lot, he doesn't care about getting $1 back.  He was yelling at me and he wasn't happy when I said he needed to calm down or I would have to ask him to leave.  I said I would be happy to re-print his pictures, but when I went to do so, being guided by the website address printed on the bottom of the pages he had given me, he accused me of watching what he was doing on-line.

They weren't even naked pictures of Beyonce.  What was this dude getting so worked up over?  He must be crazy in love with her.

All right, I do understand why he was so worked up. Damn you, Beyonce, for putting us mere mortals to shame.

kids these days...

...can't get enough of their Civil War comic books.

entrepreneur?

So, my cousin has been selling Mary Kay for a long time.  And as I'm always interested in ways to make a few extra dollars, I have been considering joining for a long time.  But I never did because I didn't think I would actually sell anything.  And I don't want to harass the people in my life to buy things for me.  But, I recently decided to give it a shot.  We'll see what happens, I am not expecting it to make me a millionaire, but when I talked it out with some people, there were basically zero reasons why I shouldn't give it a shot.  I'm, like, a little bit embarrassed by this whole thing, but I know I like product, and I like all the Mary Kay stuff I have used in the past, so hopefully I'll get over that.

If you'd like to check out my snazzy website, you should go here - http://www.marykay.com/mwithers-tong.

Someday, I hope to be able to cruise around in one of these:

Baller!

unexpectedly awesome

I admit it, I jumped to a conclusion the other day when a group of girls who often give me a hard time asked if they could watch a movie in one of the study rooms.  I was prepared to have to look over the movie and make sure it wasn't something that I could get in trouble for showing.

Boy, was my face red when I they gave me the DVD case and I saw that it was season 1 of The Golden Girls. 

Perhaps I'm not as out of my element here as I thought.

Gangster

weirdness for a saturday

I was just signing a dude up to use the computer when he saw my cellphone on my desk.  He pointed at it and asked if I could do text messages with my phone.  When I said yes, he asked if he could be my text friend.

I went with no thanks.

I'm all set with text friends

blues

Yesterday, I was here. Today, I'm at work with the nutters. It's not going to be an easy afternoon.  On the plus (?) side, I believe my library husband will be coming in for a meeting this afternoon, so that's sure to be an interesting encounter!

full moon?

I have been at work for less than an hour this morning and have already had 3 fun encounters:

1.) Older gentleman, who I know is in his 50's because he told me, came to ask me if we have true crime books because he loves to read about real murders and has since he was 14.  I refrained from asking if he was getting ideas from them.  He goes on to show me the book he is reading and shows me the pictures in it of the murder victims and their families as well as the accused.  He was carrying a small cooler with him - I think there may have been a head in it.

2.) Another gentleman needs help figuring out how to use the webcam on his new laptop so he can take pictures of albums he wants to sell on ebay.  I figure out the process and he proceeds to take a picture of me in front of the computer.  I hurriedly figure out how to delete that picture.  I then spend quite a long time sitting next to him while he tries to remember his log-on information for ebay.  He does not remember, but rather than register again, he decides that learning how to take the pictures was enough for one day.

3.) A third gentleman is waiting to talk to me to reserve a room for a meeting he will be having here at the end of the month.  I know that I have talked to him before but could not tell you what about.  While we are working out the details of his meeting, he says that he refers to me as his 'library wife.'  Awkward laugh.  After we've made the arrangements he says that he's got to thank me for all my work and he'll take me out to dinner.  He says he knows I'm married, he's just being a nice guy.  Or he asks, do I like sports like basketball or baseball?  He gets tickets and we could go sometime.  Or sometimes he likes to organize trips to New Hampshire to go horseback riding or rafting, and he pays for it all.  "It would be cool, I know you're married."  I'm supposed to look at my schedule and get back to him with my availability when he gets back from some work trips next week.  I'll be getting right on that.  Or using my panic button for the first time the next time I see him.

fun morning

not an idiot

So, the teens here most of the time think I'm pretty dumb and that I can't see through glass or if they squat down under a table I can't see what they're doing.  Mostly this involves eating or drinking, which they're not supposed to do in the library.  But yesterday morning when the library was pretty empty, a girl asked if she could use my desk phone.  I told her that phone calls are supposed to be made at the circulation desk and that someone up front could help her out.  She wasn't too happy with that answer, but she wandered over in the direction. 

About 20 minutes later she came back and asked if she could use my phone now.  I asked her if she had used the one at the front desk and she said that they wouldn't let her.  When I asked why, she just shrugged and acted like she had no idea.  So I asked her who she had to call, and a half second after she said "my friends" I continued my sentence that you can only use the phones to call parents.  She immediately said "yeah, I'm calling my parents."  When I said that I heard her just say that she was going to call her friends, she denied that she ever said that.  She continued denying until I told her that our standard practice was for the librarian to speak to the parents and ask that they come pick the teen up or whatever else the request was going to be.  She decided she didn't need to make that phone call then, but did ask to use my cell phone.  Surprisingly, that didn't fly either.

Woohoo

Some days, I get a lot of laughs.