Best Tax Question Yet

A guy wanted tax help. I gave the usual demurral. He persisted. His question was about the "money back thing," by which I think he meant the big stimulus check-o-rama* we're all supposed to get. He wanted to know if there was some form he could fill out to get it. I told him that I am not allowed to give out tax advice, but thought that he had to file his taxes first and then it was an automatic thing. "That's the thing," he said wincing, "I don't, like, you know, pay taxes and stuff." I told him that I wasn't sure he was going to get one.


*If somebody goes to WalMart with their $600 and buys a TV made in China, does it stimulate the economy? In the US, I mean. And if somebody uses their check to pay down their credit card, does that stimulate anything? Just asking. Don't get me wrong, I fully intend to stimulate the economy with mine. Promise.

The Horrible Restroom

So that you will no longer have to listen to me whine about how awful the restroom is here at DeskSlave Central, I have decided to take a page from the early days of the Dept. of Homeland Security and issue a color-coded alert based on the following system.

You Guys

I don't think I got the email...since when has "you" been replaced by "you guys?" I hear it at the desk many times wach day and not just from ill-mannered children. I also hear it at restaurants, even the nicer ones we can sometimes go to. "How are you guys tonight?" even though my partner is not a guy.

Probably from the same artist

An Open Letter Concerning Erotica

Sir:

Your interest in erotic images featuring the elderly is, in its own way, commendable for its ecumenical and broad-minded approach to the subject of human coupling. However, kindly have the decency and common sense to conduct your research into this subject at an Internet computer that is not THE MOST OUT-IN-THE-OPEN ONE IN THE ENTIRE BUILDING. That way, no small children (or large children, or adults for that matter) will be forced to share your little hobby as they head down the hall to the Restroom, vile-smelling though it is. Also, if you take pains to shield your activities from the semi-wary eye of the DeskSlave, you may get more than 10 minutes before he strides over, turns off your monitor and asks you politely, yet firmly, to leave.

Also, kindly consider pursuing certain hobbies at home.

Respectfully,

The DeskSlave

Bronco Update

The Bronco is gone. Maybe its rightful owner claimed it. I fear it may have been boosted, though. Boosted. That's cool librarian talk for stolen.

Lost and....still lost

I have mentioned the horrendous, hostile-to-life Mens Room before. I get a feeling that you will be hearing more about its vileness soon. But today, while trying to beat my record for breath holding (under 2 minutes: I'm very disappointed in myself), I saw a children's toy truck on the floor. It was a Bronco-ish thing missing a door, but some kid probably misses it. Ordinarily, I would pick it up and give it to my colleagues at the Circulation Desk, but it held the taint of the Mens Room. So I left it parked and abandoned.

I'm sure it's a generational thing

A boy of about 11 just asked me if we "had a printer that could, like, take a picture of a paper and like print out a new picture of the paper." He was unfamiliar with the whole photocopier phenomenon. It's no big deal, though. I'll bet anything that in the early days of cars you'd get young people asking stuff like "do you have like a car only like it's a total animal and you ride on top of it and not in it?"

Ummm...we kinda do

I was just asked if we have "CD Cassettes." We did get rid of our Record CDs some time back, though.

At least she cared to write

I kicked a teen out last night. The usual...noisy, annoying, resistant to reminders of library rules and simple decency. A little later, I cruised by the computer area and this was at the computer she'd been using.

Such a sweet girl.

It's Official

The Men's room in our temporary library is officially too skanky to enter. Even the hold-your-breath method no longer works.