Friday, July 29, 2005

Miss Information is annoyed by a really great pair of shoes

So, because people are on vacation, Miss Information is spending lots of time this week around the Circulation desk. Well, in fact technically she is supposed to be supervising the Circulation desk, but since she is unfamiliar with this department she has no idea what usually happens there. Still she's not worried--books come in, books go out, no one is getting into fistfights with the circ staff--surely this is the main thing.

The other thing she is supposed to do this week is be a "floor clerk". This is where you pace around the library and try to catch employees not working. Unfortunately this wandering around the building trying to catch people not working, seems, well, a little too much like not working to Miss Information and she hates doing it. At the end of the day she likes to be able to point at a big pile of paper and say "Hey, look at that big pile of paper. Do you know this morning it was way down on the other side of the desk? I moved it." The walking around spying on employees just doesn't give the same sense of accomplishment.

Even though she knew she was going to spend more time on her feet, away from the cushy comfort of the Reference Desk, she decided to wear her cow shoes. Oh, how she loves her cow shoes. They are a lovely pair of sandals with a beautiful fake cow hide strap attached to a big thick wooden sole. They are not particularly comfortable to walk in, however. Miss Information is used to striding around the library and these shoes require her to take teeny girly steps. Also the shoes make a lot of noise...rendering the sneaking up on non-working employees unlikely if not downright impossible.

Sadly she decided to sacrifice the spying on other employees part of the job and do some loose leaf filing instead. She moved a lot of paper and felt really good about herself. At some point she wandered back to Reference to reshelve the very exciting CCH binder she had been updating. She heard a suspicious thud in the Reference Stacks--sort of like the sound of a body making contact with a hard surface. She went to investigate. She encountered one of the well-known sociopath teenagers walking briskly from the area. There was another kid (sociopath's younger brother?) in the area weeping and clutching his head. He (the sobbing child) spotted Miss Information and took off. One of the customers reported that the child had been "pushed around" and she should go after him and make sure he was alright. Miss Information took up the chase--using the teeny girly steps her shoes permitted. She followed the child down the uncarpeted staircase--CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP--honestly it sounded like a piano falling from a high building, but the library carpet could be used as a science experiment for bacteria, so she wasn't taking off those shoes for anything.

She never did catch him. Of course he was a sensibly shod 8 year old who clearly didn't want to engage in a heart to heart talk about the evils of bullying with Miss Information and she was neither inconspicuous nor difficult to outrun.

So, there may be a child with a serious head injury out there not getting proper treatment and it's all because Miss Information wore the wrong shoes.

But they are such nice shoes...

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