Fighting the Stink

Literally seconds after pushing the "Create My Blog" button, the Security Guard at the public library where I work as a Circulation Clerk accosted me with urgent news regarding one of our particularly bizarre customers. This one is apparently starting a one-woman campaign to eject especially stinky people from our library--a move that is specifically directed toward another of our batshit insane patrons who, truth be told, could use an occasional dash of Old Spice. The anti-stink activist is the same woman who once claimed she'd gotten a huge sliver in her finger from one of our wooden chairs, and when I brought over our first aid kit she begged me to remove this three-week-old-looking festering plank from her finger myself. Not being trained as an EMT, I respectfully declined. When she broke into tears when recounting how she'd been fired two days after starting her new job at Target (I had, in fact, previously noted the familiarity of her red-polo/khaki-slacks ensemble), I slowly backed away and resolved never again to make direct eye contact.

When first contemplating writing my own blog, I wondered if I'd ever have enough material to make it worthwhile. Now that I've spent a few minutes looking around my relatively small, relatively modest library which is packed with lunatic patrons, frustrated employees, and an armed security guard who is frantically hanging on to her last strands of mental competence, I'm a little less concerned.