Snerk and Ewww

Yesterday, right before my shift ends, a student brings up a wallet he found in the bathroom. Good, thanks. I do the same thing I do whenever I'm given a found wallet or purse. I open it up to see how much money's in it. No, not to take. If there's a copious amount, I call UPD to come pick it up and deliver to the owner. That's the procedure. But there's only eleven bucks in the wallet.

There's a driver's license in the clear pocket. Fine, I'll email him and tell him we got his wallet. I look the student's name up in the directory to get his email address. I find Adam Smith, but the directory says the guy's faculty and the ID I'm holding is for a guy who's 22. At most, he'd be a senior undergrad. No way he could be faculty. I look at the driver's license more closely. There's something weird about it. There are several credit cards and other plastic in the wallet. I take them out and shuffle through them. All of the credit cards are for Adam Turvik, and I find his student ID. The student ID is for Adam Turvik as well. It's the same guy. I can see that clearly. In fact, when I place the driver's license beside the student ID, the pictures are identical.

The student ID's don't list much information. In fact, they only give the first initial, middle initial, last name, and birth date. A. Turvik was born in 1985. I look at the liscence. Adam Smith d.o.b. 1982. Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a fake ID. Of course, I can't keep quiet over this. I show it to my co-vampire Laura, and we set to snickering over it, and we even look up his patron record to see if he even lives in the state the license is for. Of course not, he's a freaking local. I'm trying to decide what my responsibility is here. Should I throw the fake ID away? If I did, he surely wouldn't raise a stink over it. I'm still debating what to do while composing my email when Adam Turvik aka Adam Smith walks up.

Of course, my co-vampire and I recognize him right off. We stuff all the plastic and ID's back into the wallet. He comes up and asks if a wallet has been turned in. He's seen us stuffing everything back into the wallet. We hand it to him. He opens it up and starts going through it, checking for everything. We didn't put it back like it was. It didn't seem a big deal, but he gets a little pissy like he suspects we took something and doesn't appreciate that we'd gone through his wallet.

Oh no, he is not getting outraged with me. Nothing is missing, and he's the idiot who left it in the bathroom. I say quite clearly and calmly to him, "I was going to email you that we had your wallet, but I had to find your real name first." He shut up quick and left.

Laura and I laughed over the whole thing and instantly told the morning crew coming in and laughed some more. Hey, we're vampires not angels.

Now for the EWWWW!

Just a couple minutes before sitting down to tell you about Adam, I'm walking out of the staff area when I see a piece of cloth on the floor. It's crumpled up. I don't know what it is, except that it's purple. Gingerly, I pick it up. When it gets to eye level, I realize what it is. It's a freaking G-string, and it's DIRTY.

UKKK! EWWW! GET IT AWAY FROM ME! WHAT THE FUCK? I fling it onto an empty bookshelf and race to the front and subsequently empty the Purell dispenser that's kept up there. Why me? Why? I'm absolutely traumatized. I'm putting in for workmen's comp.

WHY is it in the staff area?! I would've known to get tongs before investigating if it were out in one of the public areas, but this was behind the desk. Is no place safe?

P.S. I saw my first streakers tonight on my drive to work. Two guys just flopping along. None in the library yet, but the night's still young.

PSA for Students #2

Yes, laptops are wonderful things. No, they are not a necessity. You cannot stand in front of me and say you have to have a laptop to type your paper with fifteen empty PC's behind you and expect me to feel any sympathy for you.

No, I will not tell you when the next laptop is due back because that does not signify anything. Your fellow students regularly return them early and late. I have checked-in laptops with as much as a $65 fine, and students have returned them after as little as ten minutes of use.

If you want a laptop, you must wait for one. Waiting is standing near the desk and watching for someone to bring up a laptop. Waiting is not sitting at a computer, putting on headphones, and playing games. Waiting is not standing at the other end of the floor joking with friends. Waiting is not going to another floor and calling on your cell phone periodically to see if a laptop is available. If you tell me beforehand, you may go to the bathroom and remain in the queue, but if you go to the bathroom without telling me or spend more than fifteen minutes in the can, I will not hold a laptop for you.

No, I will not remove late laptop fines. You know the rules. You signed a contract. I will go and find the contract you signed if you argue with me, and I will become even grumpier because the contracts are not filed alphabetically but are just in a huge pile.

So to recap, wait by the circ desk for a laptop, do not bug me about when the next one is due, be mindful of when your laptop is due back, and we'll all get along fine.

That is all.

Looking for Amusement -- Found

Okay, so I'm bored. To break the tedium, I wander down into the stacks to look for any misplaced books, forgotten items, etc. On the first floor, I see a lot of trash underneath a carrel. I go to investigate and what I thought was just ordinary trash is actually an assortment of deodorants. My curiosity is piqued. I reach down pick them up and find duct tape is wrapped around them.

My brain kicks in. I kneel back down, and look up underneath the carrel. I find a whole stash of personal hygiene items taped to the underside. There are three bars of deodorant, four toothbrushes, two packs of gum, a pack of life-savers, and two tubes of toothpaste.

Usually, I would throw these items away, but one little detail amuses me enough to be magnanimous and leave the stash alone. The duct tape is camouflage. You know whoever did this thought the camo duct tape would be sneakier than regular old duct tape for their nefarious hygiene plans. You gotta love these kids. They do the darnest things.

BORED

Work has been dragging tonight. After the barroom brawl between two guys, things died down A LOT. Who else can freaking say that and then still with a straight face claim to work in a library?

Good waste of time: a fun book related website.

Drinking in the Library

Could someone please explain the appeal?

I just don't get it, maybe I'm being an old fogey, but sneaking beers and drinking them surreptitiously in the stacks doesn't seem that fun or exciting.

My co-vampire, who is fresh out of college, admitted to drinking a few times in her library. She said it relaxed her and helped her focus. I can believe the first part, but am having trouble with the second.

I mean when I would imbibe I usually wanted to do anything but coursework, maybe there's a connection here to the high amount of streaking in my library.

I actually wouldn't have a problem with the drinking if the kids didn't insist on leaving their empty beer bottles and cans out and not recycling them like good little eco-conscious alcoholics.

But I do draw the line at jello shooters. I don't care if it was St. Patrick's Day. The jello wasn't even green, it made a sticky mess , and nobody offered me any.

Lost and Found

Lost and found is a fun aspect of my job. It's incredible what these students leave behind. Memory sticks, laptops, watches, cameras, wallets, keys, cell phones, graphing calculators all get left behind and about a third of it is never claimed.

To amuse ourselves on the overnight, we'll often raid the lost and found and divvy up all the old stuff. Our policy is that anything over one month old can be disposed of. I got a brand new towel this way. The receipt was still with it and everything. The student's name was on the receipt. I'd emailed her and told her we had her towel, but after five weeks, she still hadn't come to claim it, and I tell the students in the emails that their belongings will go away after 30 days. I've gotten two watches, a pretty pillow, an unused leather day planner, and a ring this way.

Lost and found is how I got my current memory stick. I'd emailed the owner, told her where to pick it up, and gave her TWO months to claim it, but the owner never showed, and she never emailed me back. Well guess what, I now own a memory stick. I really like it :-)

Crazy stuff gets left here, too. Currently we have a pink hula hoop, 2 3lb. dumb bells, and a plastic sword.

Makes me wonder what exactly those kids are doing in the stacks...

Library Blogs

I finally got my act together and linked to some library blogs. All of them are much more relevant to libraries than this silly little blog. Read them and get smarter.