Dumb Sh*t People Say: Library Edition

I work at the library. Still (sigh).  And although working in the library can have its perks and offer some cool experiences, I still have to deal with the people. And boy do some of these people say dumb shit. My fellow library workers, you know what I'm talking about.   I mean some of the things they say make you really wonder it the library system is failing the public and that library books are really just small, hollow boxes with confetti or liquor inside.  Some I decided why not share their “dumbassedness,” (not a word, but it’s the only word to describe the things I’m told on a day to day basis) with my fellow peeps? 

So here is a way too short list/rant of the stupid things I've heard and what I really wish I could say to them.  (This list was actually pretty hard to think up because after so many years of hearing them speak, I just began to tune them out).

1) (On paying a $12 fine on a late DVD) "Whoa! $12? For that amount, I could have just bought the DVD."

- No dip shit.  You'd have to pay about double that amount or more depending on the kind of DVD.   Consider it a bargain, be grateful and pay up.

                                                                                             

2) “I didn’t know they were due, I thought I could keep the books out for as long as I wanted.”

-Are you kidding me? Did you really think we’d buy material just to let people return them “whenever” they wanted?  No, hand it over, pay the fine and get out of my face.  By the way, if I ever need advice as to how to run a non-profit to the ground, I’ll give you a call.

3) “I don’t think I should have to pay this fine, because I came yesterday and you were closed.”

- Oh so you mean the entire eight hours that we were open yesterday (which you could have also called if you couldn’t make it) didn’t cut it for you huh? 

4) "Is it ok for me to eat in here?"

- Is it ok for me to slap you?  I'm sure your answer is gonna be NO, (unless you're into that weird stuff but that’s neither here nor there). So guess what my answers gonna to be. We may be in a different era, but traditional library rules still apply.  So take your four course meal somewhere else. (People have actually come in with straight up entrees, trimmings and all).

5) "I'm going to sue you!"

- FINALLY! Someone who's willing to take the $40K in student loans off my shoulders.  You want to sue me? Be my guest! I have nothing to offer but debt. :-)

6)”The library should be open 7 days a week.”

- Look here buddy.   I don’t know if you have a life, but I do (well not really but still). There are plenty of other places that offer that service. The last thing I want to do is spend 7 days of the week in the library, especially knowing you’re going to be there.

7) “The bathroom is so disgusting.  It really needs to be cleaned”

- Watchu telling me for? Do I look like a janitor (don’t answer that). Are you honestly surprised? Instead of carrying on and on about how disgusting a PUBLIC bathroom is, how about you tell your fellow patrons, the ones who actually use the bathroom, to stop bathing in the sink and splashing in toilet. 

                                

8) “Can I use the staff bathroom?”

- Umm….are you staff?  No?  Then there’s your answer.  We were nice enough to give you guys a bathroom in the first place.  There are stores that make you buy something first.  Stop being greedy and go stand over there.

9) "..................." (This is when a patron walks up to you without saying a word, makes you scan their card for no reason, and the two of you have an awkward staring contest until someone breaks the ice).

- “…………....?!?!?”(When they finally let me know what they want, sometimes I tell them that I just thought they wanted to hear the scanner make the beeping sound).

Seriously, I couldn’t think up the last one to make it a nice evenly round 10.  Plus I’m studying for upcoming exams so get over it.

So there you have it.  A small glimpse at that sadness dropped on my door step five days a week.  It may not sound too dumb or too stupid to some of you.  But hear me when I say.  Some of these people are all out simple.  And it’s not just with their words, but also with their actions. Walking around barefoot-feet smellin-,pooing on chairs, bringing their entire fleet of bedbugs and roaches in with them, old ladies threatening to beat up other old ladies.  It’s World War III out here people.

Maybe next time, I’ll make a list of what I’ve seen.  I’ll just have to go to a hypnotist to try to remember, then back to a therapist to try to forget.

Th- th- th- That’s all folks

-S

Dear Mother Nature, Stop Trying to Kill Me

I suffer from pretty bad allergies and dust and pollen are my sworn enemies. This has been the case since I can remember and I just hate it. It was especially rough growing up. In the spring, we would go to field tripsto learn about "nature" and someone would stuff a flower in my face talking about "it smells goods." Call me evil if you like, but in my opinion, there are many things mother nature should keep to herself. This includes flowers. Don't get me wrong. Some of them are actually pretty and there is only one flower I've dug my nostrils in (on purpose) that ACTUALLY has a smell. Those are my favorites called Hyacinths. They're the one's that line up park avenue and you literally can smell them a dozen feet away.

But back to my beef with mother N. The worse thing about allergies is the fact that so many people suffer from it all at one time. That means that from the end of March to around the beginning of May you have thousands of people in the city sniffling and sneezing EVERYWHERE!!! Like when you go to someone's house and all of you are all are having allergy attacks. I could swear I started seeing diseases forming in the air.

 I wonder, does Ms. Nature find it funny when it's 3am and I'm tossing and turning, barely able to sleep, making weird sounds with my congested sinuses, sneezing, gasping for air, sleeping with my mouth open trying to put some air back in my lungs, only to wake up a million times from the RIDICULOUS amount of drool that has been absorbed into my pillow?

So this is my plea to mother nature. There's no reason for you to be acting out like this every spring. Take a Prozac. I know you're excited that spring is here but do we really have to go through this every single year. I'd really enjoy a spring that doesn't involve you acting like an attention whore.

 I speak for every allergy sufferer when I say. Enough is enough.

Now beat it
-S

Bitch It Out 1: People On Trial

Now, introducing a new segment called Bitch It Out: People on Trial. Inspired by the popular section from the woman's bible, Cosmopolitan Magazine. You see, this is one of my favorite sections in the magazine because people are constantly doing things to PISS ME OFF!!! So like the magazine, with a more personal twist, I'll share the obnoxious things people do. From the offensive and disgusting, to the down right douchebag status.

Case #101 Offender 1

I already hate waiting for the train, especially late at night after a day of work and school. But what really PISSES ME OFF is when I see people actually pull out their Marlboro and start smoking like chimenies on the subway platform. Yeah you heard me, I said smoking. In an underground, unventilated, New York City train station.

Exhibit A.

Ok I know it's not the best picture, but I couldn't book Nigel Barker on such short notice, (you know, the handsome photographer from America's Next Top Model...keep up people) so my kindergarten photog skills will have to do. So let me give you the play by play. This 20 something year old dumbass hiding behind the blue pillar and puts her grocery bags on the ground (which by the way is nasty in itself. Seriously, wtf. Somebody cage this girl). Anyways, then the defendent decides she soooo desperately needs a cigarette, she decides to go ahead and  everyone else's fully functional organs with her toxins and lights one up in the middle of the train station.  .

So while she's blazin like a forest fire, luckily an older man approaches her and tells her to put it out. But of course someone who has the gall to light a cigarette in an underground train station isn't going to care. Little did she know he trained with Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid and he snatches the cigarette from her, stomping on it vigorously to put it out.


Then with a straight face, the accused had the NERVE to look around at people, including me, as if she had just been assaulted.

The Jury Has Reached A Verdict! And the Verdict Is:
No bitch, YOU are the one assaulting us poor defenseless citizens with your garbage. You're guilty as sin, and what you did is ILLEGAL.  If any of us die from lung cancer, you should be the one to go to jail.  Three cheers for gramps for putting out your Cancer sticks!!!  

The sentence:
I demand a citizen's arrest. The offender clearly doesn't care about her own health let alone the health of the people around her. As judge of the people, I hereby sentence her to lifetime of those nasty cigarette commercials and and maybe an a mini case of gangrene (too mean?). She has he right to smoke in her own filthy basement and leave the decision to fuck up my health with Mickey Ds and P.F. Chang's up to ME.

(Interesting Side fact: About five minutes after the loser moves away from embarassment, another guy starts smoking literally two feet away from my face.  I guess his girlfriend noticed the homicide in my eyes while I was getting ready to tattoo the imprint of my boot to his face, so she tells him they should walk to the end of the subway platform.  Seriously, is there a full moon tonight or what!?!)

Court is adjourned.

- S

I Am Katniss Everdeen....Sorta

So my latest obsession, of which I have many, is The Hunger Games trilogy and Katniss Everdeen is my shero. She's super badass, a tough cookie, a social misfit (like me :-D) smart, intuitive, brave, pretty much the bees knees (yeah, I said bees knees). There is just something about her character that I feel is a complete representation of me. Thanks to minoring in English during my college years, I feel that I better relate to certain characters, that I understand them better than most people do since I tend to do character analysis while read.

But I'm not here to convince anyone to read The Hunger Game, (even though I SERIOUSLY think it should be required reading in order to exist on this planet) or to tell everyone how much I just LOVES me some Katniss (and Gale - Team Gale) but it is to draw upon a point that I found so defining of my life as it was defining in the world of Katniss Everdeen.

 (*Sidenote - If I start talking or in this case writing as if I'm writing some sort of term or thesis paper, it's because I have yet to master separating grad school for the rest of my world. So if I start citing sources and use APA or MLA formatting, pleaseee bare with me - that will be all. CONTINUE).

I'm reading Catching Fire, the second book in the trilogy, and as I was reading, I stumbled across a paragraph so true that I had to stop, think, read, stop, think, and read again. The paragraph stated and I quote: "...started to call to work on my talent. Every victor is suppose to have one... It can be anything, really....I don't have a talent, unless you count hunting illegally a talent, which they don't...my mother tried to interest me in suitable alternatives...cooking, flower arranging, playing the flute. None of them took" (Collins, pp. 39).

 And then...EUREKA!!! It hit me like Manny Pacquiao (see Money Mayweather, even I'm not afraid to get hit by Pacquiao)I finally was able to say to myself something that has rung true for years. I HAVE NO TALENT. Seriously, like none. Zip, zilch, Na-Da! Everything I do, is mediocre. Cooking - I burn water. Singing - I make dogs howl. Speaking another language - I can barely master English, let's leave the others alone. Knitting - whenever I try to make a scarf, I end up making some pitiful replication of a table coaster. I have no talent whatsoever, which really stinks. I mean I'm surrounded by people who have exceptional capabilities. My older brother can draw better than Van Gogh, my mother is the Haitian Martha Stewart (sans the jail time), my dad has business skills like Warren Buffett, hell, even my little brother can beat any video game with mind (aannnd a controller and countless hours to waste). I even have coworkers who are just awesome at stuff, makeup, computer, martial arts. Where does this leave me? Talentless, with nothing to offer the world?

I'll tell you where this leaves me gosh dang it. Like Link from The Legend of Zelda I, Slajanna Jean, am on a quest. On a quest to find a talent(s). Now for those of you who know me, oh so well, know that one of my biggest character flaws is my lack of follow through. I start things, get super excited and motivated, and once the week is over, I'm over it. But I need to change all that. Like Katniss, I'm huntin, only instead of game, it's for my talent. I can't wait to see how this plays out. Stay tuned.

We'll be right back after these brief messages from our local sponsors.
 -S

Allow Me To Reintroduce myself, my name is....

Hi, I tried blogging before but that was a complete and utter failure. I don't even remember my bloggers address. Oh well. I don't know if anyone would even read this. Hell, I might be my own follower (which pleases me very, very, much). But according to a lot of people, I have issues. And as a glorified introvert, I decided the only way to deal with these so called "issues" is to blog. Insteading of talking about my feelings ( gross) and all that other stuff, I could just blog about it in my small corner of the world and call it day.

So where should I begin? Hmmmm....let's see.... Ah, my name, right. Ok, uh my name is Slajanna, I will be your host this evening and every other evening til I stop blogging. I am a 22 year old social misfit, introvert, daughter, and a whole bunch of other things. Now this is in no way a therapy session, in which I rant about all my problems, and look for advise. NO SIREE BOB! I don't even know what the point of this is. I guess I just want to share the quirky adventures of my life with you, (and who'd you say were you again? You know what, never mind. It doesn't matter. We'll talk later).

Anywhoo, I do plan on sharing my adventures in my attempt at figuring out where I fit in or if it's even worth it to fit in. I also enjoying learning and trying new things, but I just never actually learn or try new things. But hopefully with this blog, I can actually have that extra push to get off my tookus and just do it. (Just gotta love Nike right?) Together, we'll laugh, laugh harder, cry (from laughing) and pee our pants (from laughing, but if it's a constant occurrence, please see your doctor.) Soooo yea, that's it for me.

 Over and Out
-S