Tales from the "LiberryCAST"

In these days of miracle and wonder, with all our email and forum snark, the craftily-worded complaint letter is nearly a lost artform. Even at the library, a place where the patrons had no problem complaining about the tiniest of perceived infractions, we rarely received them in letter form. That's why I decided to turn the tables and start writing open letters of complaint to the people who drove me nuts--albeit, online and in a place where they were unlikely to ever see them, especially considering that one of them is dead.

From the cast of 16 And Pregnant to the Octomom, bad moms are in the news and are seemingly more common than ever before. And while the majority of the moms who I knew at the "liberry" were awesome, there were a handful whose parenting skills I at least had to question, when not being actively driven nuts by the ladies themselves. Welcome to the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Bad Mother's Day Special.

Two of the more exasperating and amusing child patrons we had at the "liberry" were Little Kevin and Little Chuck Martin. They were very intelligent, sometimes bitingly funny, but often a bit spacey and prone to making the job of "liberry" ass. a difficult one. I still count them among the good eggs, but that made them no less challenging (or funny) to deal with.

Pedophiles: Public enemy #1. You've tried smelly sprays and perverticides, but pedophiles can smell too. They avoid sprayed areas and keep coming back for more. What you need is CHESTERKILL...

...Oh, I can't do it anymore. I so want to make light of our library's resident pedophile Chester the (Potential) Molester, but I just can't stand to do it. He was never a joke to us when I worked there and he's still not now.

Unfortunately, guys like Chester, who have more than a dusting of interest in underage girls, are a part of life when you work in a library. They don't tell you in the interview that it's part of your job to defend the patrons these sick bastards might (or might not) like to prey upon. But when you see them in action, you gladly do it because every fiber of your being screams for you to.

And Chester was particularly infuriating for many reasons, but two primary ones: 1) monitoring Chester's activities when he's in the building becomes a full time job from the moment he arrives; 2) Chester above all other patrons can magically appear at the sound of his own name.

This is less of a Funny Ha-Ha episode and more of a Holy Shit, I Can't Believe That Guy Is Walking The Earth, Where's Chris Hanson When You Need Him? kind of episode.

Tax season is one of the more annoying seasons at the "liberry." Not only do you have people descending on your head, asking for financial advice you're not qualified to give, but they refuse to read all signs to that effect that might have saved them a trip to the reference desk. Don't bother putting any up to direct them to the tax forms, either. Patrons, as a rule, don't read signs.

Episode 6 (106) presents three different tax time tales, some of which are amalgams of a handful of other stories originally presented on the Tales from the "Liberry" blog.

Hope your personal tax season is going better than mine used to.

Fact: There are still people in this country--young people, even--whose lives do not revolve around the internet. These are people who not only don't check their email every day, they don't even HAVE email. It's kind of refreshing, when you think about it. However, it can also be VERY frustrating when those same people turn up and decide to jump whole hog into it in the course of one lesson. It can be difficult to explain the concept of the world wide web to an internet neophyte when they are still trying to climb the hurdle of basic computer concepts. It is even more difficult to explain all of the above to a person who is aggressively ignoring everything you tell them.

That used to be my job.

Anyone who's ever worked the reference desk in a library has heard tale of the infamous THEY--that secret cabal of advice-givers who send people to the library in search of the of odd-assed things no library should be expected to have. They cause an awful lot of trouble. And it doesn't help that the patrons They send to libraries have difficulty communicating the instructions from They in the first place, necessitating the consultation of English/Patronese dictionaries and, quite possibly, a divining rod.

They said you should listen to this podcast. They said doing so will make you fabulously wealthy. They said it contains the answers you are seeking. They said it has a creamy nougat center. They said you should forward the podcast on to five people you know and three you don't, or it will bring bad luck. They said it does a body good. In fact, They said if you don't listen to it, Slim Goodbody will come to your house and kick you squar in the junk. They said if you do not possess "junk," that's okay, neither does Slim. You can both listen to the podcast together.

Unfortunate Fact: human patrons often read their library books on the toilet, where they are apt to accidentally, or otherwise, contaminate them with various mookystinks. (Think about THAT the next time you sit down to read a borrowed book over your lunch break.) Horse patrons rarely read books on the toilet. However, as evidenced by this week's podcast, they are also apt to be a bit liberal with their distribution of waste products around them. A classic tale of love, compassion and disinfectant.

And in our bonus story, we have another tale of finding the wrong video in the right case, only this time without as much discomfort involved--er, well, depending on your cinematic tastes, I guess. It's probably a tale only Stephen King could love.

The second episode of the LiberryCAST features a classic story of both poor customer service and insane customer behavior. It also marks the debut appearance of long time "Liberry" Rogue Barbara Turdmurkle on the podcast.

Yessir, it's the premiere episode of Tales from the "LiberryCast." This is an audio adaptation of stories from a blog I wrote for five years called Tales from the "Liberry." It was a chronicle of my quest to remain sane while working in a public library where the patrons could double as extras in a David Lynch film. This podcast will adapt my favorite stories from the run of that blog along with some behind the scenes commentary and DVD-style commentary.