Tales from the "LiberryCAST"

I thought I'd wrapped up all my Christmas-based entries in a nice bow in the 2011 ChristmasCAST, but it turns out I missed a few. And a glorious few they are! Among the tales featured this week, we have a holiday tale of complaint and revenge delivered Santa-style by board member Mrs. Day. And the tale of a Christmas miracle featuring none other than our formerly nastiest patron ever, Mrs. Carol Satan.

(A BONUS CLASSIC EPISODE FROM SEASON 1, IN HONOR OF MRS. CAROL SATAN'S UPCOMING CHRISTMAS APPEARANCES ON THE PODCAST)

As much as I complain about nutty patrons, the vast majority of people I had to deal with on a daily basis were amazingly nice and appreciative folk, who would never think to question a fine, let alone whine about it and whose scant few complaints were limited to things like, "I wish the library was open even more often than every day, cause I love it so." Then, just when I was starting to think that humanity was basically decent, if occasionally misunderstood, and I should really look into shutting up with my own petty moaning, someone truly evil, such as the patron I called Mrs. Carol Satan, would arrive and blow the decency curve for everyone.

Mrs. Carol Satan's overriding memorable quality, (beyond smelling like a Marlboro factory in heat) was her ability to go from zero to psychotic, lying, bizatch in the space of 2.5 seconds. Not only was she known to frequently lie to our faces concerning matters that were her own damn fault, but she usually did so at full scream, practically slashing at our eyes with her claws. Any encounter with her left you feeling violated and dirty. She gave harpies a bad name. Dipped in the River C, she was.

Fortunately, we were at last able to defeat her in a most public manner.

This is that story.

(A BONUS REPOST OF LAST YEAR'S CHRISTMAS EPISODE, IN HONOR OF THE TWO NEW CHRISTMAS THEMED PODCASTS I'M POSTING THIS WEEK.)

I loves me some Christmas Party. Yessir. Nearly my favorite kind of party due to high concentrations of fantastic food and drink and presents. Our "liberry" Christmas parties were especially fun, as we usually did them potluck style and stuffed ourselves beyond full with the amazing dishes created by the wonderful cooks I worked with (and am married to). But there are many varieties of Christmas party beyond the "liberry", not to mention just nutty seasonal crap to deal with. This week's podcast explores the topic all around.

(Features unfortunate guest appearances by both Chester the (potential) Molester and my colon.)

Among the five Grumpiest Old Men in All The World that I encountered and cataloged during my time at the "Liberry," the 3rd Grumpiest, Mr. Crab, was perhaps the most irritating on a day to day basis. For while he was not as frequent a visitor as 1st Grumpiest Old Man, Mr. B-Natural, and did more to keep the library in business than 2nd Grumpiest Mr. Smiley (a man who actively campaigned to prevent us from building a new building), Mr. Crab habitually provided us with a greater volume of shit than any of the others.

Today's episode continues to illustrate this, in addition to telling the tales of the two times in my life that I have been afforded the opportunity to impale him on a broom.

BONUS REPOST IN HONOR OF THIS WEEK'S MR. CRAB-CENTRIC EPISODE

In the past, we've chronicled small tales of Mr. B-Natural and Mr. Smiley, the first and second grumpiest old men in all the world respectively. However, the third grumpiest old man in all the world actually proved to be one of the more active antagonists in the history of the Tales from the "Liberry" blog. As I said last week, he's an honorary old white lady and for good reason; not only is he on par with the O.W.L.s in mere surliness, but he could go up against the worst of them in the Forgetting Your Library Card and Getting All Worked up About it to the Point of Leveling Threats Against the Staff 400 meter dash. One for the record books, people.

Most libraries have a compliment of mentally handicapped patrons, but we in fact had one such soul on the staff. (No, not just Eternal Newbie Greenhorn Ms. S.)

Though he rarely made appearances on the Tales from the "Liberry" blog, our volunteer staff member Lennie was a weekly presence in our lives, though not one without his quirks. For instance, getting him to leave the building could be a challenge, cause he was built like his literary namesake and could not be easily moved if he did not want to be. However, we found the answer to that problem and it involves the Village People.

Honkies. They're a problem, be they people honking their car horns incessantly (or, in my case, to keep from being backed over in Walmart's parking lot), to crazy old white men, to people engaged in honking of a completely different and non mechanical nature. In honor of it being national honky week (and if it's not, I'm declaring it), this week's podcast is dedicated to the honks we love to hate.

We're all neophytes at something in life, but the number of people who remain computer neophytes in 2012 is still pretty astounding to me. Even more astounding are the people who are neophytes to libraries themselves--entire "famblies" of people who would only set foot in one if sent there by THEY. This podcast tells a few such stories that befell me during my time working for a "liberry."

(Featuring a guest appearance by Parka.)

(IN HONOR OF THIS WEEK'S EPISODE CELEBRATING LIBRARY AND COMPUTER NEOPHYTES, I REPOST EPISODE 5 OF SEASON 1, "THE BALLAD OF I.N. PHYTE.")

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.

When I was first planning this podcast, there were two entries from the original Tales from the "Liberry" blog that I knew I had to adapt. The first you can hear as the first episode. The next is this episode.

For all the entries I wrote in my "Actual Conversations Heard in Actual Libraries" series, only a few were labeled as paraphrased and none were outright fiction.... well, except for one. I got pissed off at a certain set of real circumstances one day and started writing unreal dialogue.

So I now present Non-Actual Conversations Not Heard in Actual Libraries #74--a completely fictional conversation between a number of real rogue patrons, inspired by actual events if not actual words.