Vote!

Today was the first time I voted in person.  Being the youngin’ that I am, this is the first time I had the opportunity to vote without an absentee ballot.  So I prepared myself this morning. I woke up an hour early, rummaged around for my voter registration card, packed a book and headed to the polls.  I was ready.

What I was not expecting was to walk right in, have them not even ask for my voter card, and be pointed in the direction of a kids desk that had propped on it something that resembled the trifold cardboard posters you use for science fair projects.  I picked up the issued marker pen and quickly filled in the bubbles like a pop quiz I so know I aced.  Then I proudly walked over to the submission box.  It was a large gray mechanism that made a horrifying sound as I inserted my ballot… it sounded remarkably like a shredder…

And on a final election note a few pictures from washingtonpost.com that I thoroughly enjoyed :

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…

Be vawy vawy quiet… I’m hunting wabbits… or uh… moose.

Let the Countdown begin…

In exactly two days I will be shedding my cloak as Pseudo-Librarian and moving on to bigger and better things.

In commemoration of my year and a half of service at this lovely public institution I have created a list of things I will miss and those I will not.

I WILL MISS:
Funny comments from story time kids
Chickfila outings with Conan
Having a job where I can email my best friend hundreds of times a day
Laughing about crazy patrons

I WILL NOT MISS:
Screaming story time kids
Andy’s asinine comments, moans, and groans
BossMan’s rants
Smelly patrons

I am sure there are more… but that is all for now as I go to prepare the way for those who shall come after me

Jesus Rocks

Someone has inundated the library with their love for the Lord.  I give them kudos for their creativity.  We have found them in the used books sale area, adult nonfiction, and somewhere near Grisham.  Amen!

Patron Fact of the Day

I had a very disgruntled patron come in today.  Why in the world are we getting rid of audio tapes and buying more and more of this daggone CDs, he wanted to know.  “CDs are made of mashed potatoes you know,” he informed me.  “How can we spend so much money on something that is made from mush?!?”

How do you answer that?  I politely checked out his books, and sent him on his way.  What would I do without patrons?

Wax On, Wax Off

Those of you who do not know the real life “Andy” probably do not get his pseudonym reference to The 40 Year Old Virgin.  Really, the name (and the role) fit him in just too many ways to ignore the likeness. And those of you who have seen the movie will appreciate the following story (those of you who have not… well you might just gag a little at the end).

I had been getting used to his new found love of suspenders.  I was even tolerating his constant cruise talk and his urging for me to by a Vespa (he doesn’t own a scooter, he owns a “Vespa”).  But today, I was pushed over the edge.  Today Andy came in with a brochure from the new day spa in the area.  He was delighted to inform me that he had made his first appointment.

It was too early in the morning, and my defenses were down.  Silly me asked the fateful question: “So Andy what are you going for?”  As soon as the words left my lips I knew I didn’t want to know the answer.  But an answer I got.

Tomorrow Andy will be getting his back waxed…

High Maintenance

I went on a date last night with a guy who I had been out with a few times over the past year or so.  He runs sort of hot and cold so I had been keeping my distance but decided I had nothing better to do than let someone else pay for my dinner last night.

We had a good time and he walked me to my car saying he wished he hadn’t waited so long to call me and that he can’t wait to see me again.  This morning I received this email:

“hey i had a great time again. i do enjoy your company and you are hot especially that nice butt. i m scared though that you are not high main enough for me. i like french tip toes and fingers tand a girl in heels is awesome. not saying you arent but that is what i dig but i dig you though sounds silly”

Wow… first of all I’d like to know when high maintenance became a good thing.  Secondly, (and this part I put in my not so nicely worded email back) if he’d take me somewhere nicer than CRACKER BARREL maybe he’d get to see me in heels…  The jist of my succinct email was that while I had a great time too he seemed too superficial for me.  So me and my nice butt will be going elsewhere.  Thank you.

Oh, and P.S. No one says “dig” anymore…

Married with Children

Do you have a “work spouse?”

I read this article to see what it would say about the relationship between Conan and myself.  I am happy to report that I am still fully single, unmarried in work terms or otherwise.  I continue to contend that he is the brother I never had.

Textiquette

I got my first cell phone in high school. It was actually a family cell phone that my mother, sister, and I passed around depending on who needed it most. Eventually we all got our own cell phones including my little sister. Now, it’s not uncommon to see even elementary schoolers with the things pressed to their ears, or going through town texting their friends.

However, this means that our texting manners are a large portion of how people perceive us.

Mr. Excess Baggage himself was clearly not getting the message that my lack of messaging was supposed to be sending. His unrequited texting had been going on for several days, at 10:30 every night on the dot. And the joy of texting is that with a mere push of a button he was gone, no effort on my part, I could go on like this for months.

And then he pushed the wrong button. At 5:30 a.m. on a Saturday he texted me.  I do not wake up at 5:30 during the week, let alone on Saturdays.  And I refuse to be awoken by a text from someone who I don’t have any desire to talk to, EVER!  This is not the way to woo me.  So, I let him have it.  I put on my Mean Librarian pants and told him just how rude he was being and that not only did I not want to talk to him at 5:30 (or text him as the case may be) but I did not want to talk (or text) him EVER!

Certainly, as children of the digital area we will teach our children that such behavior is inexplicable, but apparently crack of dawn texting was not something on his mother’s list of etiquette items to pass on to her offspring.

For further reading, please see this awesome post that not only made me laugh… but was right on.  Perhaps I should text it to Mr. Excess Baggage himself.

“The Internets”

A lady called in last week wanting to know if we “had email on the computers at the library.”  I knew exactly where this was going but there was no stopping it.  Yes, I politely informed, her if you had an email account you could access it from our computers.

“Well, I don’t have an email account,” she says, “I just want to send a letter to my friends on the email.  So can I get on the email on your computer?”

Yikes… this was going bad fast and Conan was no where to be seen so that I could pass the buck.

In the end my meager attempts at explaining how “the internets” and email work were all in vain.  She did not want to set up an email account, but she would be in later in the day to send her friends this letter.  Luckily, I was gone by the time she arrived…

The gig is up…

As you may or may not have realized I am not exactly librarian material. I took this job out of necessity and though I have settled in, there are days when story times make me want to pull my hair out and I want to shelve a book about as badly as I want to clean dorm room toilets.  This combined with the fact that I have all but outgrown my little podunk town induced me to venture into a job search.  It started with Florida, but hurricane season put a stop to that.  Then I thought about Colorado, but I don’t like cold weather, so that was a deal-breaker.  Once I finally settled on a prime location, the search was on and after a few weeks I landed an interview with The Firm.  As part of the process my interviewer asked for a person who they could contact at my current job.  Well, BossMan was out, and Andy can not be trusted, so I reached for Conan.

So when Conan came up to me today and asked what he should say when he calls back The Firm, I choked a little.  I’m not going to lie, I felt like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.  I turned a dozen shades of pink and red.  And then I apologized.  I don’t think it came as any surprise that I am ready to leave this place (and by place I mean area as much as job), but it still was hard to to come out and say.

And so, the end is near (hopefully, very near).  I’m not sure what I will do without Conan, and I do worry who he will have to deal with as my replacement (I’ve seen some questionable Children’s librarians in my day).  But I know that it will all be ok, because we are survivors… after all, we do work in public libraries…