Sunday, February 14, 2010

The library goat

Because of the snowstorm (which I will not refer to as snowpocalypse, snowmageddon, or the snotorious B.I.G.) patron activity has been picking back up, but on Tuesday when our county made the poorly advised decision to stay open, very few members of the public were willing to step outside much less risk driving in the new storm that had already begun, leaving just us library staff chickens to look at each other and stare, knowing that we were only there because we lived within walking distance or didn't have enough leave to call in.
All day long I answered the phone ("You're open? Really? No Really?! Well, I'm just calling to say I won't be coming in today, but will you hold my copy of New Moon until Saturday?") and answered the chat and backlog of email from the weekend of when we were closed ("Why is the library closed today? I spent two hours digging my car out to drive over and return my late DVDs and you aren't even open!"). While I was talking and typing away I kept hearing this noise:
Be-uhhh! Bee-ah-ahh!
I would twist in the desk chair and try to look around for what sounded exactly like a goat in the library. While few people were actually in the library, we did have some of our regulars like Homeless-Poetry-Guy or Pretending-To-Job-Search-But-Really-On-Facebook-Guy, but none of them seemed like the culprit. But after it happened a few more times I began to wonder if Pen-Stealing-Grandma had smuggled a baby goat in her purse.
Bee-ahhh! Be-ah-ah-ahhh!
The sound was coming from right behind me and I realized it was coming from one of our regulars: Lady-Who-Hacks-The-Card-Catalog-So-She-Doesn't-Have-To-Wait-To-Use-The-Internet-Even-When-There-Are-Computers-Available! The sound was hacking lady hacking up phlegm and clearing her throat constantly in a way that sounded just like a goat bleating. This went on for three more hours. Not as much fun when the mystery is solved though.

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