i am a lovely little girl

he sees me as he enters the library and he begins his incoherent mumblings about how lovely i am. he approaches the desk and says, "you're a lovely little girl."

little girl. like i'm delivering him two boxes of thin mints.

"thanks," i say, with as little enthusiasm as humanly possible.

"don't thank me!" he says, clearly getting excited by our lively exchange. "i wasn't there! i had no part of it." (note to single men: this type of behavior will never get you any play) "that was your momma and daddy and GOD!"

"yeah, ok, well can i help you with something?"

his eyes brighten and i swear to you he begins to make a sound which i can only describe as yelping.

"yes, help. help. help. help," he squeaks, trying to be cute but failing miserably because he is an oily haired toothless psycho and i am an normal attractive woman.

"yeah, that's great," i say, "what do you want?"

so we go through the song and dance of him wanting a book and me finding said book but us not having it at this branch and blah blah blah he doesn't have a library card. so i send him to the circulation desk, where he spews crazy at them for a while. there is some shouting. then he decides to take a seat at the table right opposite of little old me. oh joy.

so as i try to help legitimate patrons with legitimate questions, he entertains himself with his little mentally unbalanced passtimes. he empties all the contents out of his pockets. he drops change on the table and watches it roll around, screaming "money!"

all very charming. oh, and did i mention that between rantings he throws in a "you're so lovely" or a "you really are beautiful" or a "damned you're pretty." so very charming.

after a few minutes of this i tell him that if he cannot be quiet he will have to leave. and then, my beloved readers, he tells me that he would rather flirt with me instead. lucky me.

soon after this our ever-vigilant security guard notices that something is awry, and he comes over and reiterates that the man must be quiet or leave. so this guy gets up like he's going to leave. but instead of leaving he stands directly in front of me. he's standing, looming over the desk like he has a question to ask me, but he doesn't ask me anything. he just stands there staring at me. so i try to pretend like i am doing something, and the security guard tells him that if he doesn't have a question he must sit down and be quiet.

"no," he counters. "i don't have to do anything. i just want to look at this beautiful girl here."

and this dear readers was my breaking point. "sir ... " i begin.

"oh, no need to call me sir," he says, "my name's benny."

"i don't care ... you need to sit down and be quiet or LEAVE!"

so then he tells me again that i really am beautiful. you know, in case i doubted him before.

"sir!" i interupt, "i am not above calling the police and having them escort disruptive patrons out of the library. you NEED to leave."

and then he walked off into the sunset, turning back to face me as he passed through our security gates and stuck out his tongue at me.

have i ever mentioned that i paid $35,000 to get a Masters in Library Science so that i would be qualified for this type of work?