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Posts Tagged ‘funny’

  1. There’s Nothing Faster Than A Librarian At Quitting Time

    March 24, 2014 by Diane

    Funny Librarian

    A friend pointed out the phenomenon, and she’s right: At quitting time, the librarians are peeling out of the parking lot before I’ve barely stepped outside.

    Why are they fleeing?

    I would live in the library if they’d let me. It’s a great place to write, or people watch, or meditate, or nap (an activity I no longer engage in), or read. Shelves and shelves of books are just yearning to be read. There’s a café in the lobby where I can stock up on miniature candy bars. And there’s the all-important restroom–thankfully–because as a kid who read in the bathroom (another activity I no longer engage in), I associate books with bathrooms. The side effect? If I’m ever “stopped up,” I head to the library.

    But at nine o’clock on the dot–quitting time–the  librarians boot me out. In all fairness, they do give me plenty of warning.

    At 8:30, a man’s pre-recorded voice booms over the speakers: The Library will be closing in thirty minutes. And in case nobody heard the booming voice, the lights flicker off and on.

    Fifteen minutes later the voice booms again. The Library will be closing in fifteen minutes. The lights go off—no flickering this time–and after sufficient darkness they come back on.

    Ten minutes later, the voice returns. The Library will be closing in five minutes. Please check out your materials NOW. The computers go black. The lights go off. Reluctantly, the lights come back on, and one of the librarians makes the rounds asking patrons if they need help–a polite way of saying PLEASE LEAVE. Before I’ve had time to power down my laptop and gather up my notebook and haul my stack of books to the checkout station, the voice is announcing: The Library is now closed. Thank you for visiting.

    Visiting.

    As in…you don’t live here, now go home.

    And it’s just me and the shelver in her vinyl gloves, glaring.

    I think the librarians are bored. That’s why they race off to something more exciting…like sleep. With the checkout process completely computerized, librarians have nothing to do but prop their elbows on the counter, chin in hand, and daydream about quitting time. They no longer need to deal with all those sneezing, coughing, whining patrons. That job is reserved for the reference librarians.

    I try to keep the reference librarians engaged. I’ll ask for…oh, a book on the daily life of the Aztecs, and they’ll peck around on the computer, scroll through options, jot down a list of numbers, and point me in a direction. That’s it. Job done. But at least it was something to do.

    Have you ever tried to stump a librarian? It can’t be done. I’ll bet if you asked a librarian to explain the difference between a physiatrist and a physiologist, you’d get an answer. I’ll save you the trouble. Read my previous post.

    I’m impressed by the amount of information that’s implanted in a librarian’s brain. Case in point: There’s a tiny library in the Sierra town where my father lives…how tiny, you ask. It’s so minuscule that you have to step outside to pull your library card from your back pocket. When I visited this over-sized bookshelf, I was greeted by the librarian who knew the names of all the members of my family and whether or not they had voted in the last election. How did she know this information?

    Librarians know everything.

    If they didn’t, we wouldn’t need them. We’d have librarian-less libraries. Come to think of it, we do. Take a look at this bus stop library.

    Let that be a warning, ye who flee at quitting time.

     

     

     

    Category Ain't Life Grand | Tags: ,,, | 16 Comments

  2. There’s Nothing Up My Sleeve

    March 17, 2014 by Diane

    hand extended

    Whose big idea was it to consider handshaking an acceptable practice?

    According to Wikipedia (that trusted resource written by anybody with the ability to login and type), the handshake has been around since the time of the ancient Greeks. The custom was meant to show that the bearer of the hand had no weapon. “See? Nothing up my toga.”

    What compelled the other Greek to grasp the hand and shake it? Was it to see if anything fell out of the toga, if there was a weapon stuffed up the sleeve?

    What those toga-wearing philosophizers hadn’t considered was the lowly bacteria; the secret weapon invisible to the naked eye. That outstretched hand…who knows where it’s been? It could be lined with the plague. Or a skin-eating organism. Or fish from last night’s dinner.

    Usually I try to have my hands occupied so I don’t have to engage in mutual shaking. But there I was, sitting on the examination table in the orthopedic department at the hospital wearing paper shorts, when Dr. Bloomberg walked in, his hand thrust out for a good hearty shake.  

    The fact that Dr. Bloomberg hadn’t washed his hands first led me to believe that he wasn’t a real doctor. I came to this conclusion because the nurse, after ushering me into the exam room, told me there was a doctor in the department who used to be an air conditioning repairman in the hospital. This was in answer to my question, “What’s the difference between a physiatrist and a physiologist?” There was more to the nurse’s answer, but that was the only part I heard.

    The gloveless Dr. Bloomberg, I feared, was the repairman.

    “So, what’s going on with your hip?” the fake doctor asked.

    I explained that my hip hurt when I walked, it hurt when I slept, it hurt when I sit and it hurt when I got up from sitting. I told him I’d tried physical therapy and chiropractic and yoga, I’d tried ignoring it and babying it and icing it and heating it, and the pain had been going on for years now and I had a pretty good idea that what I had was bursitis, and I wanted a shot. I wanted a shot of cortisone, providing I wouldn’t suffer any horrible side effects, like sudden death. “And by the way, what’s the difference between a physiatrist and a physiologist?” I asked.

    He felt my hip, and then sat on his little rolling stool. “A physiatrist,” he explained, “works in rehabilitation departments. Physiology is the science of rehabilitation.” He said more than that, but that’s all I needed to hear; he sounded legit. Or well-read. When he had run out of story about his medical background, he gave his quads a light tap with his palms and stood.

    “I’m going to go fill up,” he said, “and then I’ll give you your shot.”

    And off he went.

    To fill up.

    Five minutes later he returned. Full.

    “Ready?” he asked. This time he didn’t offer a hand to shake, but they both looked empty. What had he filled? Was it stuffed up his sleeve? Those Greeks might have been onto something.

    I turned onto my side and faced the wall. He snapped on some gloves, slid the waistband of my shorts down, and felt around for the tenderest spot on my hip. Nothing. He asked me to find the tenderest spot. Nothing. “Well, I’ll just pick a spot,” he said, and did, and it must have been the rightest, most tenderest spot, because when he inserted the needle the pain lifted me off the exam table. I think I levitated for five minutes before he withdrew the needle.

    “There,” he said. “That’s it. You should feel better immediately.” Anything would feel better than having a needle jabbed in your bursa. He pulled off the gloves. “Let me know how you’re doing in a couple of weeks,” he said.

    And thrust out his hand to shake.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,,,,, | 8 Comments

  3. Is There A Manager Available?

    March 3, 2014 by Diane

    Gone for lunch sign

    When I first set up my blog I ran into a slight glitch. So I called the outfit overseeing my domain and explained the problem to the customer service representative who answered the phone. “What is your domain name?” he asked. He sounded like a man who was good at sounding like he had all the answers, but really didn’t have a clue.

    “Squirrels in the Doohickey,” I said.

    “Can you spell that please?”

    “S-q-u-i-r-r-e-l-s…”

    “Squirrel?”

    “Squirrels, plural. More than one squirrel in the doohickey.”

    “Can you spell that please?”

    “D-o-o…is there a manager I can speak to?”

    I could have practiced compassion. I could have practiced patience. At the very least, I could have been mindful of how rude I sounded and added the world please. But I was determined to avoid wasting our time. I knew what would happen: I would go through the lengthy process of spelling my domain name and he would look it up and then he would tell me that the email on the account wasn’t mine, which was what I already knew, and had already told him, because when I had tried sending multiple messages through the contact form on my website they never arrived in my in-box.

    “The manager is gone for lunch,” he said.

    “Is there another manager available?”

    “No.”

    “Are you telling me that in all of domain-dom there is only one manager, and he’s out to lunch?”

    “Yes.”

    “If I hang up and call back and get another customer service representative in another building, will that person have another manager who might be available?”

    “Yes.”

    “I’m hanging up.”

    I redialed. I reached another representative who sounded eager to do my bidding; I didn’t let it fool me for a second. “Can I speak to a manager please?” I asked.

    “What is this regarding?”

    I repeated the problem. I explained in a tone that says I’ll tell you the situation, but when I’m done I want you to connect me with someone who can actually fix it, that someone had screwed up, that someone had written down the wrong email address on my account.

    “What is your email address?” he asked.

    I told him.

    “That’s not it.”

    “That is it.”

    “It’s not the one we have.”

    “I know. That’s the problem. Someone on your end wrote it down wrong.” I smiled so he would hear it in my voice. “Can you please tell me what email address you have?”

    “I can’t tell you that.”

    “Why not? It’s my account. It’s my domain.”

    “I can’t.”

    I dropped the smile. “You can’t, or you won’t?”

    “I’m not allowed to.”

    “Is there a manager available?”

    “No. I’m sorry.”

    Talking to a customer service rep is like bringing your car to an auto body repair shop to get fixed, and someone inside sends someone outside to give it a probing look. The young man kicks the tires, runs a hand over the shell, picks at a paint chip, steps back to evaluate it, ducks back inside to flip through an automotive repair manual, comes back outside and stands with one hand holding up his chin, nodding knowingly, while all the while he’s thinking about what to order for lunch. And when you ask for someone higher up, a mechanic perhaps, to look at your car, the nodder stops nodding and gives you a hard stare and says there are no mechanics available. And he’s right. Because when you storm past him into the lobby, past the receptionist who’s talking to her boyfriend on the phone, past the coffee-drinking estimators leaning their paunches back in their swivel chairs, and burst through another door that you assume leads to the garage, you end up gazing out at a parking lot full of dented vehicles, realizing that the whole building is a false front.

    There are no managers.

    Santa Claus doesn’t exist.

    The Easter Bunny is your mother.

    At the end of the yellow brick road is a short bald man operating controls behind a curtain, just trying to get his job done.

    Sorry to break it to you.

    Category Fer Cryin' Out Loud | Tags: ,,,, | 1 Comment

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