Introducing Checkout Chronicles: Legends & Lore from Library Land, a new blog series that features tales from in and around our checkout desk.
STAFF CONTRIBUTOR:
Mary, Public Services Associate
Personally, I love a good twist of irony. My favorite Twilight Zone episode ends with irony. You know the one: civilization is wiped out and the only guy left finally has all the time in the world to read and he breaks his glasses. Irony. Why am I bringing this up? Well, we have irony at the library, too.
The most common is the puppy training books that come back destroyed by tiny puppy teeth. It probably happens about once a year, maybe less. But it’s a frequent occurrence, one we sort of look forward to. I think we should start collecting photos of the canine offenders and their books!
Other random moments that make us laugh include the time a patron called to let us know they were struggling to find a book they checked out. The title: How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found ... and then he found it.
We also laughed when a patron came to pay for a lost book called (and I am not exaggerating): How to Stop Screwing Up. And the day when our former sorter (which had seen better days at that time) sorted several Where’s Waldo books to the wrong sorting bin.
We had a fellow library in our system call to warn us that a patron had returned several of their materials with bed bugs in them and that same patron had recently returned one of ours if we wanted to inspect it. The name of the book? Bug Identification.
It is useful to be able to keep a sense of humor in a job that involves a lot of contact with people. It helps when the job itself provides the humor!
