His wife has approached by this time and he says in front of her and the kids, “Just hook up with some guy at a bar and get pregnant. Children don’t need a father.”

The family was very quiet when they left. It was so surreal and shocking. If it hadn’t happened to me I would’ve thought it was something out of a movie.

1: Patrons who expect you to have their library card number memorized. I don’t even have my own memorized! Why would I memorize anyone else’s?

2: Patrons who don’t pay attention to anything you say. Especially when it comes to computers. You asked for help and you’re going to completely ignore me? Why did you ask?

3: Patrons who can’t accept that I’m a clerk NOT a librarian. I did not get a degree. I do not have all the librarian training. I’ve told you repeatedly that your complex question needs to be answered by a librarian.

4: Patrons who return damaged books and scream at me like it’s my fault their book is sopping wet and smells like it was dropped in a toilet.

5: Patrons who think I’m their psychic baby sitter. My name is not Professor Charles Xavier. How am I to know your child is here without you and that he’s autistic as well? (Long story that ended with the mother shouting at me that he was austistic and that *I* should’ve been keeping an eye on him while she stood outside and chatted on her cellphone.)

6: Our public copy machine. It thinks for itself. Unless you watch every step on the screen it will mess things up.

7: My coworkers making fun of my “sensitive nose.” I’m sorry I’m the only one who can smell the homeless man halfway across the library before I even know he’s there. It doesn’t mean you have a right to make fun of me just because I have a super sniffer.

8: Patrons AND coworkers who pressure me to get married and/or have children. (Seriously!) I don’t want either. Please accept that. Besides, I’m infertile. No, I don’t want to get treatments. I’m 35, almost 36, and happy being single and childless. I plan on remaing that way forever. SO SHUT UP!

9: Patrons who invite me to their churches. Yes, I do believe in God, however, my belief system is closer to Judaism than Christianity.(And I am Jewish by maternal descent.) Also patrons who work for spas or makeup places and pressure me about coming to them for a treatment. I already dye my eyebrows to match the color I dye my hair. Why would I want to dye them to look darker? My eyebrows, my choice. I don’t care what they say on What Not To Wear. Clinton & Stacy are morons anyway.

10: This one needs an explaination more than any of the others. I was a page for years before I became a clerk. So I tend to be very organized even in the checking in process. I will take everything from the bookdrop waiting to be checked in and seperate it into piles according to which cart it goes on and where. Including a seperate pile for transfers. As I check them in I’ll pile them in front of me until a certain point then stop and put them on their carts. It’s faster that way, no doing one book at a time. Well, there I’ll be with my piles all neatly stacked, working away, and without fail some Special Snowflake will come up, reach OVER all my piles, and put their stuff right in front of me on my “already checked in pile” – then get mad at me when I move their stuff off and to the side. Even when I explain that the stuff in front of me is already checked in and I need to move it to a cart. Didn’t your mother teach you to wait your turn? Don’t think your stuff is more important then the stuff turned in before you swanned into the doors. And yes, I’m a bit anal about this – don’t mess with my nicely organized piles! ARG!

@Laura, agreed to #7 (extra entitlement re: tax dollars) and #9 (shouldn’t have to pay fines).

I also get really angry about those patrons who steal from libraries – theft in general is awful, but these people are stealing from a community resource, stealing things that would be loaned to them freely. It’s just mean.