Last day

Bad news, all: I have had to quit this immensely entertaining job because my fiance and I are moving up north! This will be the last blog post for a while. I hope to start up again by bringing you anecdotes from the great state of Michigan, but library employment markets (and the MI economy) being what they are, it may take a while. Until then, I hope you get some amusement from the archives and a final refgrunt from today--as it is a Saturday before we are closed for two days I expect some craziness.

Someone is having a...baby shower? wedding shower? in the program room.

There's a movie called Secondhand Lions?
Yes, with Michael Caine?
I for once beat my coworker to finding it because I write 'secondhand' as one word and she guesses it is two.

A middle-aged man comes in and requests a much of romance novels--Coworker: "That's unusual. Good, I think, but unusual."

Marx Translations Guy calls for two books, The Classical Liberal Constitution by one of my favorite professors from my alma mater, and Plato at the Googleplex. Also says, "You know your library card numbers have enough digits for everyone on the planet to have one, right?" Actually, we have enough digits for every kid in the city to lose and replace one a week for their entire childhoods, which may not be enough.

Send out an email to the adult reference librarians asking them to say goodbye to my favorite patron for me. Maybe she will come in later today? I hope so.

Lady is having trouble with a self checkout machine--only some of them are equipped to scan a barcode on your smartphone, not all of them. When we tell her this she sayd "Well, y'all are still ahead of every other library!" Thank you!

I pulled a ton of gross, old true crime books off the shelves a while ago, thinking I could submit them to be taken out of the collection because no one would want to read them anymore. However, I had to put most of them back on the shelves because apparently they are still very popular. Today I have a cart full of ancient fashion books, but I underestimated the popularity of those even more than I underestimated true crime. Yikes.

Moment of terror as a kid with a lot of disabilities has some kind of a fit, but his dad has it under control and he is okay.

Older brother, younger sister. Sister: "I'm looking for those warrior cat books."
Young adult, Erin Hunter, Y HUN. I don't even need the computer for that.

Old man on the computer I think is playing slots.

Possible future librarian kid, seeing me sorting through fashion books: "Are those the new ones?"
Me: "No, they're old, but people are still using them, so I'm seeing if they need to be fixed up."
"Oh." He absorbes this information earnestly.

Man on our library homepage: "Can you help me? I'm trying to get on the internet."
You're already on it, sir!

Audiobook: Falcon Quinn and the Black Mirror. That's the first one, right?

Make a list of of local citizenship classes for a nice woman. Fun!

Can I borrow books from this World Cup display?

A book called Countdown--fortunately he can narrow it down by describing the plot.

2014 reference copy of the Guinness Book can't be checked out, we can find you a 2013 though.

Super-confusing call about some lost items that were returned, compunded by a language barrier. Eventually I give up and pass her case on to a circ expert.

Am asked twice: Where is the book return?

Can you tell me if there is a used bookstore near here and if so, where?

Lego Batman Visual Dictionary (can you believe this is a thing?). Hold is cancelled but fortunately it is just back on the shelf.

Crabby guy who always wears one of those surgeon masks over his face: You've got some guy sleeping back in the corner there? Is that allowed?

Breaking Bad season 1. I was afraid but actually we are down to only 12 holds on 8 copies, not bad at all.

Same woman: The Fault in Our Stars. I think this title is the current record holder for longest wait time in our library system, so she says never mind, she'll buy it.

ACTUAL TEENAGERS want to play the Wii. Crazy.

Needs help saving/emailing.

One of the teenagers: Never mind, this game is lame, here is the controller back.

Don't worry, lone teenager, your little brother would like to play with you instead!

No manila envelopes, sorry.

Can't find her hold--it's under her mom's card.

Printer won't take five dollar bills.

Do you have a section for comedy movies?

The lady said that when my book is here I will know, but HOW will I know?

Shakespeare, any.

Purchase request for the 2013 movie Belle, and where am I in the holds queue for About Last Night and Ride Along?

May I borrow a pen or pencil?

Phone call for Insurgent, the sequel to Divergent. Of course there is an intimidating hold list but at least she isn't mad or surprised, just a little disappointed.

Audrey comes to say goodbye and hug me for the millionth time.

Phone call for a Buick repair manual, someone at one of the other branches has gotten confused and accidentally hung up on the patron instead of transferring her, so both the staff member and the patron call at the same time on two different lines, but my coworker and I figure out what's happening in time to avoid telling the second caller (the patron, but only by thirty seconds or so) that sorry, our only copy is being held for someone else.

Do you have a phone I can use?

Can you print me those driving directions you printed me before?

Kid needs help finding Home Alone 2 and a Thomas the Tank movie. Insists on holding my hand. Then he confides "I will need your help eight times...bye" and leaves.

Just curious, what is that construction they are doing outside?

Buick book woman picks up her Buick book.

Soft-spoken teenage regular, holding a book: Can you tell me if this is the first in the series?

Needs help downloading and emailing a file. Never heard that one before!

The copier blares its distress signal.

Printed a bad set of pages from her email's document preview fuction, but she's really a good sport about it. She had a few other printing problems but she was sooo happy when she got her documents. It was a great last patron interaction.

Then again, we're open for seven more minutes, so anything could happen.