Friday, January 09, 2009

A patron pushes Miss Information's buttons

Pft. Miss Information is still trapped in the world's most civilized library. The customers are, without exception, pleasant and polite. Some of them may actually be idiots, but since they never ask questions it is impossible to tell. They come in, quietly select books and leave without causing a ruckus. They pay their fines promptly and this kills Miss Information, without being asked. Sometimes they even pay other people's fines. No one on staff has more than a passing knowledge of the dialect that the majority of patrons speak. You'd think this at least would lead to some wacky Three's Company style misunderstandings. Nope. Customers are quite happy to act as translators for complete strangers. It is like working in Mayberry except more ethnic! Miss Information is miserable.

Miss Information was briefly delighted on Tuesday by the activities of one customer. The circulation desk is right next to the front door and during snow storms the staff disables the automatic door opener-thingy because otherwise the door stays open and the staff doesn't look good blue. Most people figure it out. If they press the button and nothing happens they just manually open the door. Except for this one girl. She was a teenager, old enough to understand the workings of such things. She tried the button. Nothing. She looked at the sign with the library hours. She pressed the button. Nothing happened. She peeked in the window. Saw signs of life. Pressed the button. Nothing happened. At this point she began pressing the button constantly, because, like maybe you have to press the button 31 times to make the door open.

Miss Information was pleased to see this kind of determination in a young person and yeah, she should have gone to open the door for her, but she was observing the child for science. She thinks the girl would have been there forever except another customer came along, walked up to the door, pulled it open and let the poor girl in.

Miss Information is happy to report that the girl exited the library without difficulty.

3 Comments:

At 7:43 PM, Blogger Annemarie said...

Wow. I unfortunately see this behavior all of the time, my mother had a an with button operated (and still, normal pull on a handle) doors. My entire family can't close the van doors anymore if the button doesn't do it for them.

I'm personally enjoying the new slew of "where's your tax forms".

 
At 6:31 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

You need a display copy of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Getting Inside"

 
At 12:34 PM, Blogger needle*spool said...

hahahaha
I love it!
It reminds me of the old far-side comic that we used to wear on t-shirts in middle school that shows a child pushing on a door that sais PULL at the School for the Gifted... (I was in gifted classes, so it was even funnier then)

 

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