May 13, 2008
The World’s Most Intense Library Patron
Posted by grindchopblend under human condition, insanity, librarians, libraries, pencils, stress[2] Comments

Blonde, meticulously groomed (maybe too well groomed… are those eyebrows shaved???) , see-through skin, maybe 40 years old ..who knows??? Disturbingly stocky, wound tight enough to cause strokes in innocent bystanders. Neat to the point of pin-ness where it makes you worry. He could totally be a paramilitary dude like the OK City bombers or something.. Paramilitary is all I can think about when I see him… A death stare boring a hole into my soul as he asks “can you help me?”…. um, yes I say as I wish I had taken that break when it was offered. ” I want to renew these books, I don’t have time to read them, I’m working all the time every day and night”…. okay, I’ve heard his story before about where he works, how he is so desperate for knowledge he wants to read every fucking book in the library on every fucking topic….. technically I could’ve sent him to the circ desk, but I want to get him in and out ASAP.
Then “just a quick question”….right… i can feel it coming…. ” I want information on NASA. I want maps of Cape Canaveral Florida. Lots of maps of Florida… all you got….”
Okay. Trying not to lose it……NASA????? That giant government agency with multiple divisions and locations??? Right. He just wants to know how to get a job with NASA…. ” not only researching pollution, fixing the carbon emissions problem and the O-Rings thing that made the shuttle explode, but also researching the evolution of life on this planet and how it could develop on other planets. Just the quick info on Research and Development in geology and also teleportation or something…. I mean you have to be serious about all of this..”
I’m into the 30 minute mark with this dude and decide to punt. I tell him I want to call downtown to the Central Library and see if they can maybe help pinpoint the exact departments he needs to call but he declines. I find a general number, finally, that is buried on the NASA Employment page but I have serious concerns that this will be a recorded message only saying “please visit our website at ….” And in retrospect I am wondering why this perfunctory answer did not suffice. I wanted him GONE.
CrazyMadReferenceRefuseToDie Thing kicked in and I kept going. I could go on about my torture but I won’t. In the end, I gave him a phone number for NASA and a Children’s book on Florida (which he loved because it goes right to the facts…. “straight in….. like you need to go straight in”)….. Remarkably, when I suggested he take some time on the NASA site and look at the different divisions and what they do, etc.. he says he doesn’t want to look at their website, he doesn’t like computers… Well then! NASA is the place for YOU my Luddite friend ( maybe if you were Laurie Anderson and have a tune to give them for their annual them song._) But even Laurie (and I post her name here with utmost admiration and love… she if the BEST) even Laurie knows about computers and the Internet….
But… after all day in the library, as we were helping another patron, he approaches the desk, eyes FULL-BORE, lazers into me….. and he asks…. softly… “can I have a Latte in here??” I’m caught off guard … huh???? “Can I bring a Latte in here?” Yes, I say…. and watch him leave (hoping it’s the last time he’ll come back here)…. and crack up laughing as I exchange the “JFC” eyeroll with my coworker….








