Even when He gets left in a book

I should write this one thousand times

"I WILL NOT ATTEMPT TO HELP ANYBODY WITH THEIR COMPUTER PROBLEMS."

Longhand. In blood. My blood. From a self-inflicted wound.

A patron, armed with laptop, enlisted me in the quixotic quest to find the document she had just spent an hour (or maybe it was two, yes definitely two--or three) typing. I should have said that I could not help her, but it seemed like it would be, if not a no-brainer, then maybe a half-brainer. Pop into Word, look at the Recent Documents, life is fine. It was a no-brainer alright, but only in the sense that I wanted to blow my brains out at the end. By now I should know this: as soon as you touch somebody's computer, any problem, even ones that were already there, are a) your fault, b) done deliberately out of a feeling of malice and hatred, and c) your obligation to remedy to the owner's satisfaction even if the remedy takes vast amounts of time and violates various laws (civil, criminal, physical). I never find myself thinking "I need a drink," but the thought did occur this time.

Step One: Build Time Machine

I bet you dind't know

That "that's goofy" is a substitute for "thank you" when you run a patron through the not-exactly-intuitive printing process?

Didn't think so.

I'm with you on everything but the sheets

(erstwhile bookmark)

Oh, so that's what it means

I was helping a patron place holds for knitting books. While running the catalog through its paces, she mentioned that one of our knitting books that she had taken out recently had had pages cut out of it. We talked briefly about the barbarity of cutting up library books. She said that she thought that, to her, cutting up a library book was like vivisection. Then she leaned in and, all sotto voce, told me that vivisection meant "when they cut up animals." By the way, sotto voce means when you talk in a low, soft voice that unlikely to be overheard by others. And condescending means when you talk down to somebody.

Ironic author name of the day

In case you can't read it, the author of this book (which I am certain is an important contribution to the field of DBT which has benefitted many, many people) is Moonshine.

Weaned on a pickle

Some weeks ago, I got to attend an actual cultural event, a rare occurence in the life of a deskslave. Classical music performances are an expensive habit, so I don't get to go very often. It was a great performance, marred only by one of my least favorite patrons who just happened to be sitting behind me. I was polite enough, but tried to make it clear through subtle body language that I wasn't up for small talk. It didn't work of course, and she leaned forward to deliver her critique of each piece. Then, next time she was in the library when I was there, she wanted to talk about the performance again. Only not quite. She started with that, and then went into her own classical training in voice and piano. This might have been an actual conversation, only it was clear that I could have been anybody and she had absolutely no interest in me. She cared not for my opinion of the performer (much rosier than her own) or any training I might have had to get me to that opinion (not much, really). This alone might have given me reason to dislike her.
I think I already had good reasons, though. She constantly needs help on the computers. She is clueless, which is fine, but belligerent, which is not. She is a nasty summoner of help who expects you to fix things for her, not show her how to do things.
But the thing that put her in firmly in the despised column was something else. Like most libraries these days, we offer computer classes. Pretty basic stuff. Nastly lady has taken them all, many times. In classes she is nasty, barking out angrily when she doesn't understand something. We started offering classes in Spanish, too. We're all very proud of this, and the classes are well-attended and greatly appreciated. One day, nasty lady walked up to the desk with a bookmark in Spanish for the classes. She had her nastiest expression, her "weaned on a pickle" expression. Waving the bookmark, she said, "I see you're offering classes to the Mexicans. What about us?" Like we have no classes in English! Like she hadn't taken each one several times!

My Favorite Book Title Today

I'm not sure the kids are your target demographic

I found these on top of the fiction shelves in the Juvenile area.