Ahhhhh, people....

It's been a while since I've worked the loan services desk at the library. I came here as a student, enjoyed the public service part quite a bit, and then took another job before returning to the library scene (a different library, though) 7 long years later. I can tell you, I've changed since my first stint at this gig. You might think that age brings patience along with it, and in many ways it has for me, but not in dealing with library patrons. I know how to choose my battles, and I'm never overtly rude (or subtly rude), but I'm really not as eager to help the helpless as much as I was when I was younger. I'm cynical about the whole process, usually extremely bored, and not easily amused. That's age talking for me right there.

But then there are the precious entertainers who stand across the desk from me, hopeless and often dimly lit upstairs when it comes to locating a book. The Dewey Decimal System has bewildered those readers who are easily lost in the jungle of shelves, numbers jumping off the book spines at them, stabbing lines and circles into the eyes of those who dare linger. Some patrons become so frightened that they can't fathom looking past the shelf they believe their book to be inhabiting, even when the addresses on the shelf do not match the address on that tiny slip of paper in their hands. To look would be to find, and helplessness would turn to hopefulness, if only they would risk it. In a panic they turn to us wardens. We glance, we find, we triumph. If only the patrons' temporary witlessness made us feel big.

Next, please.