Inspectors and Alarms and Inexplicable Fart-Rage

Today was just...the weirdest fucking day.

I went into work two and a half hours too early. Because I didn't check the schedule and apparently I enjoy working but not getting paid for it. I should move back to 1855 and just live it up.

So I got there early and from the the start, shit was weird.

10:15-ish: I arrive at work. I get to the Reference Desk. There's a man standing directly in front of the desk looking at us. So I ask him "Do you have a question?" And he mumbles a barely audible "No, thank you" and wanders off. Okay. Whatever. Kind of weird, but not even the tip of the nutjob iceberg when it comes to our usual patrons. One minute later, he returns and begins leaning over the desk, looking for all the world as if he's hunting for something among all the pens and clipboards and review journals. So I ask him again, "Do you need something?" And AGAIN I get a mumbled, "No, thank you" and AGAIN he just wanders off.

That's when I start to suspect that this guy might have wandered away from his caretaker.  So I turn to Ben and ask, "What's with that guy/" And Ben says, "Oh, that guy? Yeah, he doesn't actually need anything. he just keeps looking at stuff. I've decided to call him The Inspector."

Perfect.

And then. AND THEN. Maybe an hour later, I start to hear a commotion over by the public computers and I look up to see a man at one computer arguing with a man at another computer and there's a whole lot of "fucks" and "shits" and "more fucks" being thrown around. So I beeline over like the fucking masked Library Avenger (Keeper of the Peace and Protector of those Trying To Get Shit Done) and demand to know what the problem is.

The man on Computer #12 (we'll call him the Offended Party) turns to me and says--I SHIT YOU NOT--"This fucking asshole just farted in my face!"

So from what I could gather, the OP was just minding his own goddamned business when this audacious asshole on the computer next to him decided to have a perfectly normal bodily function at an unfortunate time. The Unfortunate Farter apologizes. The OP doesn't give a fuck about apologies because, goddamnit, he's been farted on and this man with the disrespectful colon deserves all of his wrath and rage and probably death.

So by the time I got there these two grown-ass men were already deep into an argument that was not only ridiculous and juvenile, but also had absolutely not solution. IT HAD HAPPENED. THE FART HAD BEEN RIPPED. THE MAN HAD APOLOGIZED. WHAT WAS THERE LEFT TO ARGUE ABOUT?

So I told them this. I told them that it was unfortunate and bad and super-duper-not-great, but that it had happened and that they needed to just ignore each other because they were making a scene and if they COULDN'T ignore each other, they needed to take their uncontrollable Fart-Rage out of the library.

At which point I like to think that they both came to their senses and realized that they were neither pre-historic cave-dwellers nor 9-year-olds, and that was what caused them to shut up and go back to their computer. But honestly, I think they were just responding to the threat of being kicked the fuck out.

So after that incident left me questioning all of humanity (and what kind of cooties I probably got from standing in that guy's fart-space), I figured out that I had come in too early, and that I would have to be there until 9.

This was basically the rock bottom of my day. I had a two different people get mad at me because they couldn't use the wireless for free. One woman handed me her driver's license after I'd already checked her out because, and I quote, "It's the right thing to do." I still have no idea what she was talking about. And finally the after-hours alarm started going off two hours early and I had to frantically call my way up the phone tree looking for someone to give me a code to turn it off, eventually leading me to call the Director.

By 9 I was basically ready to get into my car and drive off a bridge. But instead I drove home. And I ate a cup of Ramen. And I put my entire face into a container of peanut butter ice cream. And I decided that if there was one thing I could take away from today, it was the eye-opening truth I might have been the sanest person in the entire library today.

And I feel like a goddamn champion.

Peanut Butter and Scurvy and Impending Doom

It's 9:51 at night and I've just realized that the only thing I ate all day was peanut butter. Out of the jar. With a fork.


I feel like one of these days they're just going to find me dead in my house because I ran out of food that wasn't peanut butter or nutella or some other spreadable dessert-condiment and I couldn't be bothered to walk the 50 feet between my apartment and the store. And I'll have died of some ridiculous vitamin-deficiency sickness, like scurvy or that weird European disease that makes your skin boil off.

*UPDATE*

I lied! I've just remembered I stole a slice of pizza at work tonight as I was bringing it downstairs for all of the kids at the Teen Advisory Group meeting.

There. I stole pizza from children. Everything I said earlier is invalid because I am clearly doing a great fucking job.