CONTENT WARNING: Gross, Animal Death

I work in a library processing returned books for reshelving. One of my duties is checking the returned books for major damage.

As I’m clocking in, one of my coworkers warns me:

Coworker: “This next load of overnights is going to be a doozy.”

Me: “Oh no. What’s wrong with it?”

Coworker: “I’m not entirely certain, but it stinks.”

Me: “Stinks as in is something’s rough about it, or stinks as in actually smells bad?”

Coworker: “The smell. There’s a…. miasma.”

Me: “F***.”

So, I put on some protective gloves and a mask for handling the bin. Sure enough, there’s a noticeable smell.

Now, I’ve smelled a lot of bad things. People pee on books, or pee into the book return… never mind that doing so would require some impressive gymnastics. People drop garbage in the book return. Small rodents can get squished in the book return and killed.

This smells like that last one. With luck, only a few books are damaged.

I start going through the bin looking for the corpse of a rodent, but I can’t find one. I cannot tell where the smell is emanating from.

Frustrated, I start opening the books and paging through them quickly to check them for damage.

And that’s when I find the dead mouse, squashed flat INSIDE one of the books.

I mostly felt the need to share because that’s a new one to me. Never seen a mouse inside a book before. Seen spiders squashed into books, or flies, or other insects. Never a mouse before, though.

At least we were able to find and dispose of the source of the smell!

At the library where I worked, books had two forms of identification: a bar code tag on the back cover and a thin metal strip hidden inside the spine. The strip triggered the security alarm if it wasn’t deactivated at checkout. After our biannual book sale, this happens…

A man with a large backpack tries to leave. The alarm blares, and he’s escorted back to the desk. He immediately raises a fuss, but eventually, with much grumbling, he pulls out a hardback book with its entire back cover torn off.

Patron: “This is my book!”

Me: “Sir, you set off the security alarm. That book isn’t checked out to you. Also, it’s damaged.”

Patron: “No, I got this at the book sale the other day! It’s not a library book anymore! It’s been… uh, it’s been…”

Fellow Librarian: “Withdrawn?”

Patron: “Yes! Withdrawn! I paid for it, so it’s mine!”

Fellow Librarian: “Sir, if this had been withdrawn, it would be stamped ‘WITHDRAWN’ on the title page and back cover. The back cover’s missing, but I don’t see a stamp anywhere.”

Patron: “It was like this when I got it!”

Me: “If a book was in the sale in that condition, it would also be stamped ‘DAMAGED.’ No stamp here.”

Patron: “IT’S MINE!”

Fellow Librarian: “Also, sir, all books sold at the book sale have their security tags deactivated. This one clearly hasn’t.”

Patron: “There’s no bar code, is there?”

Me: “Sir… the bar code isn’t the security feature.”

Patron: “…It’s not?”

Fellow Librarian: “Nope.”

The man grabs his backpack and bolts. Later, up in the stacks, I find the missing back cover, with the intact bar code, stuffed between two books exactly where the title belongs. Nice try. At the next sale, my coworker officially bought the same book (now stamped WITHDRAWN) and, for weeks, made a big show of strolling back and forth through security with it, just to rub it in.

I work the circulation desk at a public library in a small city in upstate New York. One morning, I lend my friends my car so they can get their car from the mechanic. They come to the library before opening, and I go outside to hand the keys over. We chat for a minute, and then I go back to work.

There are a few other people outside when this happens, including a regular library user who is a pain in my neck. He tries to get me in trouble with my boss all the time, but he isn’t usually successful. It’s relevant to the story that I’m a gay man, and the friends I loaned my car to are two women, none of us try very hard to pass as straight.

About an hour after the library opens, my friend comes to the circulation desk and returns my car keys to me. Once she leaves, the regular materializes out of nowhere.

Regular: “Okay, I’ll take the car now.”

Me: “Excuse me?”

Regular: “Here’s my library card. I want to borrow the car she just returned.”

Me: “Haha, I wish the library could loan out cars. That’s funny, [Regular].”

Regular: “No. She just borrowed a car and returned it. I have to go shopping. I want the car next.”

Me: “It’s not the library’s car. It’s mine.”

Regular: “Okay, fine. Give me the keys.”

Me: “I’m not giving you my car.”

Regular: “But you gave it to her!”

Me: “She’s my friend. I was doing her a favor.”

Regular: “It’s because I’m a man, isn’t it? You won’t give me your car because I’m not a [slur]. This is discrimination!”

Me: “Do you even hear yourself? No, [Regular]. I’m not giving you my car.”

Regular: “I pay your salary! I’m going to sue for discrimination! Give me your car right now!”

Me: “Okay, I’m going to call my manager over. This is getting ridiculous.”

In the end, the patron is reprimanded for harassing me and using homophobic language. I don’t get in trouble for doing a favor for my friend, and the library does not get sued for not lending a car to a straight man.

At our library, holds are found by the first initial of the patron’s last name and the last six digits of their library card number. We have too many patrons to use fewer than six. The slips of paper are taped to the spines of the books and DVDs with masking tape so people can serve themselves, then take them to the self-checkout or to us at circulation.

A man comes in to pick up his wife’s holds. I explain to him how the system works, and he goes over with his wife’s library card in hand. He comes back about a minute later.

Patron’s Husband: “I can’t find her holds even though I looked for the last three numbers.”

Me: “Sorry, sir, but it’s the last six.”

I take him over and find three of her holds instantly. It’s important to understand that these are children’s books, and sometimes kids’ books are so physically tall/long we have to put them on the shelf in different ways to make them fit.

Patron’s Husband: “No, it’s only the last three that are important!”

Me: “Sir—” *I motion to the large number of holds that take up over twenty shelves.* “—If we only used the last three, there’d be too much confusion. It’s the last six you have to look for.”

Patron’s Husband: “No! Only the last three are important!”

We go back and forth like this until I am over his rudeness. Luckily for me, one of the supervisors was working with me at the desk and heard this entire conversation, even over by the holds shelf.

I take the man back to circulation, him still saying I’m wrong, and “ONLY THE LAST THREE NUMBERS MATTER” being said more and more firmly by him, still being repeated. When I scan his wife’s card, it says there should be twenty holds, but at this time, I figure I’m going to let his wife yell at him because I am totally DONE with him.

The supervisor who witnessed all this said he and his wife came back the next day, and the husband, of course, blamed me. The supervisor corrected him, saying I DID try to help him, but he refused to listen. Apparently, the husband got my hair color wrong, saying:

Patron’s Husband: “It was the unhelpful brunette.”

I’m the only blonde currently working at that branch. 

The city is going to pull out of our system (we’re county) to open their city branch. All staff will be transferred to other branches. There are people I will miss, coworkers and patrons alike, but people like this guy I very much will NOT miss. And I honestly hope his wife reads this, realizes it’s her husband in this story, and goes to him and says, “SHE TOLD YOU REPEATEDLY IT’S THE LAST SIX NUMBERS! NOT THE LAST THREE!”

We have an area in our lobby with a coffee machine, and some tables where visitors can sit down and have a snack or a drink. While not explicitly stated, we thought it was commonly understood that a ‘snack’ means something small, like a cookie or a piece of fruit.

A man comes up to me at the information desk.

Patron: “Hey, can I eat my lunch in here?”

Me: “There’s no food or drink allowed inside the library, but it’s okay to have a snack in the lobby by the coffee machine.”

Patron: “Great!”

A few moments later, I start to smell something that I should not be smelling and go to investigate. I find the man I spoke to earlier tearing into his ‘lunch’.

Me: “Excuse me, you will have to take that somewhere else.”

Patron: “You said I could eat my lunch!

Me: “I said you could eat a snack. That is an entire rotisserie chicken, and you’re eating it with your bare hands!”

Patron: “Where’s the sign that says you can’t eat chicken in here?!”

Me: “It’s called common sense!”

He glared at me and chucked what was left of the chicken into the nearby trashcan (I suppose I should be thankful he didn’t throw it at me). I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning BBQ marinade off of tables, chairs, and the entire public bathroom.