Ho' Couture

My colleague was retrieving a book from the stacks when she came across a woman in the stacks. She looked like a crack whore, but a very stylish crack whore, with a purple sequined halter top and retro bellbottom pants that hung perfectly on her skeletal frame. She was twitching and vibrating with the effects of the drugs, her eyes wild with hallucination. “You’re the devil,” she hissed at my colleague. “Get away from me, SATAN.” The woman then drew her hands into claws and lunged at my colleague’s eyes but was so shaky that she missed and fell over onto the floor. My colleague high tailed it to security, which found the patron sitting on the ground where my colleague had left her. As expected she was highly uncooperative and security had to drag her kicking, screaming and flailing, all bony knees and elbows, into the office. When security asked her name she replied, “First name FUCK, last name YOU.”

That’s actually pretty good, almost as good as Frances Farmer writing “cocksucker” in the occupation field of her court papers when she was taken in for drunk driving and resisting arrest. Her mother blamed Farmer's subsequent breakdown on 'world communism.'

I kind of imagine the patron as Pam Grier in Fort Apache the Bronx, the alluring but psychopathic prostitute who dances and speaks in eerie singsong before slashing her johns’ throats with a razor she keeps concealed in her mouth.

My colleague, understanding that these things happen, certainly bore her no ill will, and still speaks with admiration about the patron's fashion. "Those were the greatest pair of pants," my colleague said wistfully. "I don't think anyone with an ounce of body fat could pull those off, though."