Tuesday, March 27, 2007

what is print anyway?

this woman comes into the children's room yesterday looking for pictures of the alphabet, both printed and in script. surprisingly, this is harder to find than you would imagine. we don't have any books on penmanship, so i have to use the internet. after searching a while i find several for her.
"oh, no" she says "that's not script, that's just fancy printing." i find her another, "that script is too fancy."
and another and another until i find her an example of script which suits her needs. then i find her an example of printing. it's got those grammar school lines and everything.
"oh, no" she says, "this is no good." she goes on to show me how the cross in the lower case "t" isn't big enough, and the cross in the lower case "f" is actually above the guideline. and on and on. eventually i just give up and tell her that this is the best anyone can do and if she is this picky about it maybe she should just write it out herself. you'd think we'd be done there, wouldn't you? oh no. she calls me back today!

Crazy Ass Patron: what would you call the printed alphabet?
Me: i'd call it the printed alphabet
Crazy Ass Patron: yeah, but what is it's official name?
Me: i don't think it has an official name
Crazy Ass Patron: Well you know how there's the roman alphabet?
Me: yeah (why are you talking to me you crazy psychotic bitch?)
Crazy Ass Patron: well, what would you call the printed roman alphabet? or the script roman alphabet?
Me: well, the roman alphabet is the roman alphabet, whether its done in print or in cursive (that's right, i said cursive)
Crazy Ass Patron: are you looking this up? or are you just guessing?
Me: i'm using my common knowledge (i swear to god, i actually said this)
Now at this point a line of patrons is starting to form, most likely with
legitimate questions.
Crazy Ass Patron: well i need you to look this up for me. i need a real answer.
Me: i don't think i can help you further with this, i have other patrons to help
Crazy Ass Patron: but you haven't even answered my question!
Me: i'm putting you on hold
Crazy Ass Patron: but you haven't answered my question!
Me: i've answered your question, you just didn't like my answer. i'm putting you on hold!(i hang up the phone with no intention of picking it up again)
so i proceed to help people with real questions, leaving ms. penmanship on hold for an inordinate amount of time. but is that the end of this story? no! because she called back again!
she calls back and now she wants me to look up the word print in the dictionary. so i look up the word print and read her the definitions which pertain to her psychotic needs:
1. to write in characters such as are used in print.
2. to write without connecting one's letters
Crazy Ass Patron: but what about 'print' as a noun?
Me: there are no definitions pertaining to a style of writing which are nouns
Crazy Ass Patron: well, can you look in another dictionary?
dutifully, i look in another dictionary:
1. printed lettering
Crazy Ass Patron: what does printed lettering mean?
Me: i didn't write the dictionary, so i can't say what their intention is for sure. but i think it means letters which are printed.
And then, my beloved blog readers, the crazy bitch hung up on me.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i would have just told her to google it.

'google' should be the answer to about 95% of questions.

-cary