Special Snowflake Stories

[2littlemonkeys]

I saw an...interesting...driving maneuver today.  Apparently, when the left turn lane is long and you're in a rush, simply put your car in the opposing lane to the left of the turn lane.  You have your blinker on, EVERYONE will understand.  Those silly cars wanting to drive in what is now your turn lane will just have to wait!

[HoneyBee42]

Here's one from the fish fry parking last night.  The Knights of Columbus sponsor a fish fry pretty much every Friday during Lent.  Now, I'm in a small town and this is the only Catholic church in town, so it does get pretty busy.  We arrived a little over a half hour after it started, as my middle son had a baseball practice that didn't get over until a half hour after the start time (it runs for 2 hrs, so that's no big deal).  I found a parking spot and we went in and got our food and ate in (you also have a choice of getting your stuff to go, we never do--like I said, this is a small town, so it's a social occasion, especially since all the eating takes place at big long tables that seat about 30 people so you're going to be sitting with other groups no matter what).

Well, we go to leave, and as we're walking down the sidewalk to get ready to cross the street to the parking lot where I had parked, we noticed this car doing a whole lot of moving by inches with the back and forth and turning maneuver.  Because even though this is a rather smallish lot with no room for a row in the middle (all the spots are on the edges) someone had decided to park smack dab in the middle.  The car parked next to me was also leaving, and they *really* had to struggle--if they'd been driving a larger car they would've been stuck as the rear of the car was directly behind them.  I just managed to get out myself, and there was another car that was also leaving and struggling.  So, because they didn't want to park somewhere legit, they were a SS by parking where they made life difficult for at least four other groups of people (the other cars might also have had issues if the car in the middle didn't leave first).

[Jules1980]

SS from school yesterday. I need the handicapped stall - as I can not get off the other toilets with out help due to a cast on my leg from the thigh to my ankle .  SO on my way in I stopped in the bathroom to find the stall occupied...not by someone actually using it, not even for changing, but by someone having a phone conversation. Noticing that I was waiting for it, she calls  out " I am going to be a while and if you wait - I'll just be longer!"  This is a small building and this is the only handicapped stall in it.  So I left and came back a half hour later, only to hear her say "Yeah, I am in the bathroom, in the handicapped stall, it's so funny, there's this chick who keeps coming back and I am holding her up!" and then laughed.
  I ended up needing to change my clothes because of her, and she thought this was hysterical.  I don't get it. Luckily most people are not like this.

 

Okay, I was going to stand up for this lady until I read that she was on the phone and especially her last line of conversation.  I have a friend that literally can not go if someone is listening.  At work, she'd go to the other side of the building to find an unoccupied bathroom and never uses a public restroom if she can at all avoid it.  She won't even use her own master bath if her DH is in their bedroom.  If someone came in while she was using the toilet she wouldn't be able to go until they left, so she might give the same, 'don't stand there and wait, pretend to do something else' warning if she was already on the toilet.  If she wasn't undressed yet, she would vacate and let you go first.  However, she realizes this is her hang up and tries not to let it affect others if she can at all avoid it.

[MsCopper]

I saw an...interesting...driving maneuver today.  Apparently, when the left turn lane is long and you're in a rush, simply put your car in the opposing lane to the left of the turn lane.  You have your blinker on, EVERYONE will understand.  Those silly cars wanting to drive in what is now your turn lane will just have to wait!

This happens to me every night... There are two left turn lanes and three that go straight. I'm Always stuck behind someone that tries to make their own lane. The light signals are different as well so traffic ALWAYS backs up in that intersection. I've seen people beep until the person making their own lane is shamed into going straight like the lane is intended for.

[Yarnspinner]

Two more patrons!

1)   WHY isn't freagal working for me?  I downloaded five songs last week and only Three of them made it on to my ipod.  This week I downloaded the two songs that didn't download last week and three new ones and only the first two and one of the others made it.  What is WRONG with your computer!  Help me out here!

Sadly, I am not really conversant with freagal.  As with most of these things, we expect the patrons to deal with it.  All I was able to do was read the directions out ot the patron.  Of course I was no help.

I went back to my (normally a luddite) supervisor and mentioned the lady and the issue of her missing two of her songs.  Supervisor smiled.

"Let's show you how to do this."

Well, in less than a minute, I was registered with freagal (which I just realized I am spelling wrong; what else is new) and as soon as I was registered I realized what the woman's problem was.

It states, very clearly, in the "how to" section that, as a patron, you are limited to (count them) THREE songs a week for free.  No more that three.  Let's hear it for three.

Special snowflake patron just didn't want to believe the disclaimer she had read and was trying to download five, six and seven songs at a time...of course the system was kicking the extras out.
I figured that out two minutes after reading the thing on the front page that TELLS YOU you may only choose three.  Easy peasy!

2)  This guy probably belongs in the "Harry Potter" thread, but it applies here, too, because he is simply obnoxious and yesterday, in addition to being obnoxious, he has the added attraction of being well and truely beyond drunk.

I cannot recreate the conversation as it happened.  He wanted to know "who is in charge of history? I need to know some history.  I gotta know about {city's } history.  I need a whole big book about, ya see, how *I* fit in to the fabric of city's history.  I need you to bring me the history book that tells me where me an' the city'll be in thirty years.  I want to know what the future is so I can prepare."

It took the combined efforts of two of us to get him going on his way.

3) Bonus Sowflake:  The really nice, but completely obtuse man who loves history and loves reading about it and loves most of all expounding on his conspiracy theories and using comments and off remarks from old newspaper articles to prove his point.

Today I learned that Franklin Delano Roosevelt orhestrated a coup which caused the Great Depression so he could become president. 

[Thipu1]

More library tales. 

On and off for years, we had a reader who wanted to assemble 'all the sacred texts in the world'.  This, in itself was a nutty idea for an amateur buthe could only read English and many of the modern language translations of the originals were in French, German or Italian.

  He was highly offended that we would not be preparing English translations for his specific use.  Also, because the library wasn't conveniently located where he lived, he declared that the place was 'illogical and prosperous'. 

There were also the high school girls who wanted to read a book that was in German.  At the time,we had a very obliging volunteer who was a native Austrian. They expected her to sit down with them, read the book and give a sentence by sentence simultaneous translation.

  We had more important things for our very capable volunteer to do so that idea lasted about as
long as a porcupine playing with a balloon.   

Finally, there was the guy who didn't live far away but was too lazy to make an appointment and come in.  He was interested in a particular topic.  He asked us to make photocopies of everything we had on the  subject and send them to him.  He'd then pay us for what he decided he could use.

What we had was about ten shelf feet of material. 

[mmswm]

This is from yesterday, but I thought of all the librarian stories from here when I read it.

http://notalwaysright.com/

[MariaE]

This is from yesterday, but I thought of all the librarian stories from here when I read it.

http://notalwaysright.com/

I think you meant this one? http://notalwaysright.com/graded-a-for-audacity/27593

[mmswm]

This is from yesterday, but I thought of all the librarian stories from here when I read it.

http://notalwaysright.com/

I think you meant this one? http://notalwaysright.com/graded-a-for-audacity/27593

Yes, thank you.  I am obviously having trouble with copy and paste these days. 

[andi]

This is from yesterday, but I thought of all the librarian stories from here when I read it.

http://notalwaysright.com/

I think you meant this one? http://notalwaysright.com/graded-a-for-audacity/27593

Can't stop laughing - even through the pain of coffee through my nose

[Elfmama]

Today I learned that Franklin Delano Roosevelt orhestrated a coup which caused the Great Depression so he could become president.

And the reason that you never realized this important historical fact is because of the massive government coverup.  You know, the coverup that was so good that no shred of proof ever saw the light of day!  That's how you know there was a coverup.

My theory is that Abraham Lincoln was one of those aliens from V.  He caused the Civil War so that his fellow aliens could harvest the food animals (us!) without spooking the rest of the herd.  Hey, prove that it DIDN'T happen that way!  See the depth of the coverup?

[VorFemme]

VorSon and I were walking out to the vehicle after buying him a new pair of shoes, when the SUV we were still walking past started to back up...missing me by inches.  The driver apparently stopped to check oncoming traffic coming up behind us (and him) because he started backing up again while I stepped along a LOT faster to get out of his way!

Windows were dark with film and the woman in the passenger seat was facing him, not the passenger side of the vehicle.

It took twenty minutes to get over the adrenalin shock......and get mad at him instead of scared!  At least my body was smart enough to pick the "flight" option instead of the "fight" option.....because I would have lost a "fight"!

[Elfmama]

VorSon and I were walking out to the vehicle after buying him a new pair of shoes, when the SUV we were still walking past started to back up...missing me by inches.  The driver apparently stopped to check oncoming traffic coming up behind us (and him) because he started backing up again while I stepped along a LOT faster to get out of his way!

Windows were dark with film and the woman in the passenger seat was facing him, not the passenger side of the vehicle.

It took twenty minutes to get over the adrenalin shock......and get mad at him instead of scared!  At least my body was smart enough to pick the "flight" option instead of the "fight" option.....because I would have lost a "fight"!

DH had the same thing happen to him when Elfqueen was about 2.  Car pulled up to the curb and stopped.  DH and Elfqueen stepped off the curb behind it, just as it started to back up.  He jerked Elfqueen out of the way with one hand, and yelled and banged on the trunk lid with the other hand.  No damage except to everyone's nerves.

[Jones]

The two girls who stopped in the middle of the track to hug and chat today, taking two of the three lanes, ignoring those of us coming up behind.

[Shalamar]

The kid who decided to walk through the traffic today, weaving in and out between cars, despite a pedestrian crosswalk being less than ten feet away.  It was snowing and slippery, and I came thisclose to hitting him.