I had several meetings in midtown this week, which led to some professional brain-stretching and made for some good food shopping opportunities afterwards.  In one meeting we acted out a “Readers Advisory” skit I’d written for a future YA training.  It went very well, in part because some of the volunteers who played small but entertaining parts (the Overly-Friendly Old Lady and the Rowdy Teen in particular) really got into their roles.

A few recent wacky patron interactions from the service desk:

A middle-aged woman standing in front of me answers her cell phone that keeps ringing.  She yells into the phone, “CAN YOU PLEASE PICK UP YOUR PANTS?  YOUR PANTS KEEP CALLING ME!”

The Creepy Old Flirt is trying to sweet-talk one of our clerks who’s sitting at the service desk a few feet away from me with this awkward one-sided conversation: “HI, SWEETIE PIE!  ARE YOU MY SWEETIE PIE?  THE ANSWER IS NO, BECAUSE I DON’T CUT THE MUSTARD, RIGHT?”

Our library has been retaining heat in the worst possible way.  I think it was getting up towards 70 degrees outside today, but it was over 83 degrees inside.  An old guy who came to our movie screening today (which was in our program room, which is even more airless than the rest of the building) started yelling at me as soon as he walked in about how it was “hotter than Hades in here,” and could I turn on the air conditioning … you know, like I didn’t think of that.  I explained that we had no control over the AC, but that it was run through a thermostat.  I didn’t share the explanation that I heard the other day, which was that the cooling system would only be triggered if the temperature OUTSIDE got hot enough.  Which … is … ridiculous if it’s true.  It also begs the question of why we have several thermostats indoors if they’re just going to be ignored.  But you know, whatever.  Far be it from me to question such things.  The library staff will just have to switch to beach party attire for the foreseeable future, or at least until the AC kicks in.