Never Bring a Spare Pair of Underwear to Work

The kidlets are out of town so my hubby and I spent a night on the town. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
The next day, I went to work with a smile and a headache. We had a sub at work. She came down with a vicious headache herself and asked if we had any aspirin. I had brought along my Aleve, so, I offered her some. I went to my locker, opened up my backpack to retrieve the medicine and found, to my utter mortification, my underwear in the bottom of the bag right next to the Aleve. I can only hope her migrane affected her vision.

Conversation Killer

It started with a girl- a brown haired raggamuffin whose snarled hair had been roughly cut at the neck leaving a few longer strands. She was about the age of my children. She had a slightly haunted look about her. The brown haired girl asked for books on UFOs. We only had one in the children's section so I showed her a few more in the adult section. She found a quiet spot and began to devour the book. I hope she found refuge.

A few minutes later, a man approached me. He was bearded and equally shabby. He asked for books on UFOs and other unexplained phenomenon. I was able to take him there with no trouble while he told me about... his friend with top secret military clearance who worked on a military base that has seen UFOs real ones because he'd know if it was military but it wasn't. Well, He started to talk about the big man- Big Foot that is. He was just getting wound up when I mentioned my Uncle had seen Big Foot. He wanted to know where.

"Not sure. He was a trucker so it could have been anywhere but he also did a lot of drugs so who knows."

"Not all drugs make you see things. That is so awesome. You should ask him about it sometime."

"I don't really keep in touch with him anymore. He's in jail."

"Oh, yeah? What for?"

"Murder."

He certainly wasn't expecting that from the mild mannered librarian; and that about ended it. I love having one absolute conversation killer in my back pocket. It really is an essential tool. I'm going to pass on this bit of wisdom when my daughter reaches dating age.

Mad Mer and Me

Libraries are fascinating places. Not only are there fabulous books with titles like Don't Be That Girl, Walking on Eggshells and The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead right next to each other (what a love fest), there are the tantalizing bits people tell about themselves in their choices. Sometimes the real illumination is about myself and preconceived notions or biases that I have.

For months I'd been working in the back receiving holds for someone with the abbreviated title of MAD, MER. The "name" itself conjures a wild-eyed, grizzled old woman. The fact that the books were all quilt related only strengthened the image. Only, now, she lived in a shack, compulsively making intricate quilts out of potato sacks.

One day a co-worker happened to be out front when Mad Mer arrived to pick up her quilting books, three small children in tow. Just your average suburban mom with a penchant for quilting while watching Sex in the City (those DVD requests came later).

Or is she?

BEWARE OF MEN WITH SALT AND PEPPER HAIR CARRYING NOTEBOOKS:

It began innocently enough.

"Do you have the new "pop culture mag that will remain anonymous here" magazine?"

"Our most current issue is on the floor."

"No, that was last weeks issue. I checked the catalog and it said the most current issue was in."

I checked the back room. I checked the carts. I checked to see if courier had arrived. After a few minutes of politely reassuring the man, "we no gotta de magazine", my manager had to delve into the catalog to show the man the item was, in fact, in transit--not in house. He then began to point out a disturbing trend in the theft of the magazine at our central distribution point. One magazine goes missing per week and it rotates between member libraries. It is obviously a conspiracy. How could we have been so blind? Thank God for magazine-man!


Did I mention, he comes in every Tuesday at 11 to view said magazine, notebook in hand, with the same result? This battle has been going on for months. We are currently raising funds to buy the poor man his own subscription.