Conversation I just had with a library patron, a regular. He's a 10 year-old boy who walks to the library everyday with his 12 year-old brother, uses the computer for as long as he can, hangs around other kids using the computers, and then goes home. They both have library cards, but they don't bring them. This means I log them onto the computers instead of them being able to do it themselves. It's not really a big deal except when they make me redo the reservation three times so they can sit at a specific computer. That led to this conversation.
Me: You know this would go a lot quicker if you brought your library card. You could log yourself into whatever computer you wanted.
Kid: What if it's in my pants?
Me: Your library card?
Kid: Yeah, what if it's in my pants?
Me: The pants you're wearing right now?
Kid: No, other pants.
Me: Like pants at home?
Kid: Yeah.
Me: Okay, tomorrow, before you come to the library, take your library card out of the other pants and put it in the pants you're wearing.
Kid: Okay, yeah.
Me: You're on computer #6.
I don't know if he was making a very lame 10 year-old boy attempt to embarrass me (it's in my pants!) or he was just confused. Either way, a slight failure to connect.
And then I taught a 40 year-old man how to double click. Yep. A day in my glamorous life as a neighborhood library manager.
3 comments:
My library card was frequently in my pockets as well; I put any number of them through the washing machine as a child and ponied up countless quarters to replace them. So this probably isn't a story. But why was the card in the pants pocket if those pants never made it to the library? Hmmm.
Ya'll don't have the handy dandy key ring thing yet.
I wouldn't view this conversation as a failure to connect because it honestly seems like he was perplexed. Hopefully next time he comes to the library he'll remember to wear the pants that happen to have his library card in them! lol
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