A Whole Big List Of Stuff:

1) Today a man wanted to renew a video he had checked out on Islam because, and I quote, “You have to understand your enemies.”

2) On Sunday, a man with a bullhorn burst into the main lobby and yelled as he flew up the stairs, “THIS IS THE LIBRARY!” Security was all over him in a matter of seconds. They excluded him for overstating the obvious. I’m kidding.

3) I dealt with my first deceased patron the other day. A woman called to say her husband had died, and she received a bill that that read “Assumed Dead- $49.95.” She asked if she was being billed for an item with that title, or if “assumed dead” was the category for which she was being billed. As in, we assumed the man had died and wasn’t going to return his items. I was horrified that she would think that, and reassured her that we presume nothing of anyone at any time. We had a sad laugh, and I deleted the man’s account. My boss says that the saddest one she ever had to deal with was a person for whom English was a second language, and the wife had printed on the bill “He is exit.” She said she could visualize her paging through a dictionary looking for the correct term to explain, and it made her really sad.

4) My friend David is sick of calling me only to get my voice mail, even though I’ve told him repeatedly that I can hardly ever hear my phone through my bag, and I’m not setting it any louder or I’d be one of those people who answer their phone on the bus and tempt everyone to slit their wrists with long, boring accounts of what their dinner plans would be if they didn’t have to work late. Anyway, he suggested that I just set it to vibrate and keep it in my underwear. Which might work, although it probably wouldn’t make me want to answer the phone any faster, even though I would know it was ringing. So I vetoed.

5) I caught an elbow to the face the other night while we were out dancing, and my labret caught under my gum, the little space right in front of my lower incisor, and ripped. Bleeding from the mouth but having too much fun to realize, it was the next day before I understood how many nerve endings blossom in that weird little pocket behind my lower lip. I had to take out my metal piece and replace it with my glass retainer so the rubber band could keep it snug up against my lip. Stupid jewelry. Don’t tell my mom, who would say, “Well, what did you think was going to happen when you put a piece of metal in your face?”

6) Chris returned from his wild weekend playing noise music in Texas with famous click-music celebrities and riding around with nutcake drivers polishing their nails while in rush hour traffic and proclaimed to have missed me and my ‘ding-dong dangly ways.’ That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a long time.