Tales from the "LiberryCAST"

For most of my "liberry" career, I was a part time employee. Once in a while, though, when EVERYONE else was out of town, I was called upon to take on not only a full 8 hour day, but sometimes a full 10 hour day, almost entirely by myself. This is when my experiments with real time blogging began to take shape. It's not all funny material, but it was often surprising. Guest stars include: Mr. Smiley, Parka, Kanji the Kid, Brent & Brice the New Devil Twins, Chester the (Potential) Moletster, and more.

One of the most astounding figures I encountered during my time at the "liberry" was our board president, Mr. Kreskin (not his real name). He was a very nice and capable human being, tirelessly juggling multiple complicated projects on the library's behalf. And from those projects arose many questions, only our two librarians were capable of answering for him. Unfortunately the ONLY time he was ever known to phone us at all were on the rare days when both librarians were out of town and unavailable. It was more reliable than Old Faithful. (This episode also includes a cameo by Mrs. Carol Satan.)

Summer Reading, oh how it burns! Yes, it's the time of year when snot-nosed crumb-crunchers descend upon the "liberry" to craft crafts, hear stories, fill out reading logs and create chaos. That is, if their parents can manage to get them signed up to begin with. And who is the queen of Summer Reading Chaos? Why our old nemesis, Little Kayla, of course. (This episode also includes a cameo by Parka as well as one by his shag carpet of torso hair.)

An odd tale of an odd bird encountered in the wild, AWAY from the "liberry" proper. Doc Ock Fetishist Woman was never a patron, but she was about as nutty as any of our patrons ever got. Not a bad human being in the slightest, just exasperating. In fact, if she has committed any crime, it's probably that she cares too much... about inanimate objects. Also included in this tale is the story of the first time I was busted as a "liberry" blogger. Having your secret identity revealed to you is always disconcerting, but is even more bewildering when it comes with a large dollop of synchronicity on top.

Just when we thought we had it bad enough with frequent visits from Chester the (Potential) Molester, another seeming sicko fell into our midst. And, unlike Chester, this one actually had computer skills. He also had a habit of exclusively wearing a puffy white Michelin man winter parka in the warmth of April, so his nickname officially became Parka. While I didn't know it at the time, he would become the MOST chronicled member of the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery by proving himself to be the MOST irritating patron we had to deal with, in a multitude of ways. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to play the Five Tacos and a Taco podcast game Dick, Douche, or Dumbass and see if you can tell which category Parka falls into best. Or worst, as the case may be. As an added bonus, the final story of the podcast features a magnificently satisfying tale of both a massively unprecedented event for our library as well as one of the aforementioned Chester getting his comeuppance at the hands of another library.

Last week's podcast presented how Barbie Turdmurkle drove us nigh unto insanity in helping her log into one of her many online services that she doesn't have the necessary skillset to access by herself. One year later, she returned to do much the same thing, having learned no lessons on doing so from our previous encounter on the matter. As an added bonus, I have also recorded my heretofore unpodcasted first encounter with Barbie T. It was the first of many exasperating telephone conversations I was to have with her.

This podcast marks a return appearance by previous podcast rogue patron Barbara Turdmurkle, a.k.a. the titular Barbie T. Barbie T has repeatedly proven herself to be incapable of using technology, especially computers, yet she continues to sign up for services that require internet access. This coupled with her constant fear that someone is trying to steal her identity and ruin her credit, coupled with some truly strange phone calls, meant someone at the "liberry" was going to have a bad day. Too bad it was me.

Just when we thought we had it bad enough with frequent visits from Chester the (Potential) Molester, another seeming sicko fell into our midst. And, unlike Chester, this one actually had computer skills. He also had a habit of exclusively wearing a puffy white Michelin man winter parka in the warmth of April, so his nickname officially became Parka. While I didn't know it at the time, he would become the MOST chronicled member of the "Liberry" Rogues Gallery by proving himself to be the MOST irritating patron we had to deal with, in a multitude of ways. Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to play the Five Tacos and a Taco podcast game Dick, Douche, or Dumbass and see if you can tell which category Parka falls into best. Or worst, as the case may be. As an added bonus, the final story of the podcast features a magnificently satisfying tale of both a massively unprecedented event for our library as well as one of the aforementioned Chester getting his comeuppance at the hands of another library.

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.

Public service brings with it one constant: The Public. And not everyone among the public is an avid fan of bathing nor is capable of comprehending that noxious fumes are produced by their butts, nor the readily available ways to combat said fumes. This was a reoccurring problem at my "liberry" that drove me nigh unto insanity. Today's episode presents one of the simple and elegant remedies to our library's ass fume problems that I actually proposed to my bosses. As an added bonus, following today's reading is an interview with friend and former fellow library compatriot from another state, Glen B (no relation to Mrs. B), who will enlighten us as to the exact stench classification of some of the patrons in his library. He'll also enlighten us as to what one does when one's home is swallowed by a lake and how that smells afterward. This is one for the Hobo Power record books, gang.

One of the oddest tales in the entire "liberry" catalog has to be that of Mrs. Lying D. Sackashit, a lady who proved to have in her possession a never-ending fountain of horseshit which she turned in our direction whenever we encountered her. I don't know the true nature of her particular brand of mental flaw, but she had an impressive ability to calmly reinvent reality on the spot regardless of the MOUNTING evidence to the contrary staring her in the face. Why did she do this? To get what she wanted, of course. And, unfortunately, in our battles with her, she often won.

(NOTE FROM 2012: Okay, I don't know what happened but somehow half this episode vanished. No, the version that's been posted here, for who knows how long, had the theme music, then trailed off to silence for, like, 12 minutes, then came back in with the second and third stories and wrapped up. There was a massive gap where the first story had been and I don't know how this is even possible. It was just gone and was gone from my back up .wav copy, and the .mp3 copy, and the online copy, and the backup online copy I had on another server. Huge mystery. I think I'll lay the blame upon Audacity. Anyway, I have now rerecorded the missing bit and the episode is whole once again.) Libraries aren't just for books, you know. In fact, some patrons wouldn't crack one if there was crack in it. (Unless it was written by V.C. Andrews, but maybe that's just around here.) That's okay, cause most "liberries" have on hand a selection of some of the greatest films ever created and the shittiest VHS tapes ever to be lobbed into a donation bin. The patrons who exclusively check out such tapes fall into the patron archetype of Vid-Borrowers. And their queen, Mrs. Bellows, is a force-of-nature-of-frustration.

Upgrades in technology often bring upgrades in hassle. So was the case when our "liberry" network upgraded our circulation software, requiring us to rebarcode not only our entire collection, but our patrons as well. And when it came to patrons freaking out on us in a super fashion about policy issues concerning their library card, no one won the race ahead of Paranoid Rick James. His apparent fear that the "gubmint" was trying to keep track of which Joan Medlicott books he read led him down corridors of patron deception we could scarcely keep track of ourselves.

Among existing "liberry" patron archetypes, Conspiracy Guy and Stoner Lad are probably two of the more universal ones. Every library has them, sometimes in multiples. We did as well, but there were two specific people that embodied these roles for me. Alas, by the time I began to write my blog, they had more or less moved on. But on one perfect night, they afforded me a glimpse of their combined powers of archetypical representation. (Now who sounds like they're on drugs?)

Mondays. Who needs `em? Can't stand them. Wouldn't live next to them. Okay, so this attitude is pretty much a universal one. But I assure you that Mondays at the "liberry" sucked even more than most Mondays despite the fact that we didn't even open until 1 in the afternoon. No, Mondays at the "liberry" sucked even worse than Halle Berry's Catwoman and, as your average goat will tell you, that movie sucked A LOT. This episode is a prime example of why I hated Mondays at the "liberry" and the awful events that fell upon me on one particular Monday.