Reference Desk Soup

A weathered, tweaked out woman slapped her copy card down on the desk and demanded a refund for the remaining balance of $.40 because she was “leaving this town forever.”
The librarian told her that she would have to fill out a form for the copy machine vendor before we would issue her a cash refund.

"I don’t have time for that!" she hollered. "You damn people, fucking my life up in every way!" She stalked off, listing a little to the right.

A woman asked for some scotch tape, which she used to remove the lint off of her velvet jacket. “Do you want to hear a little story about loss?” she asked as she angrily affixed and yanked the tape off her jacket. “I just lost 80 years of my family's pictures. She said that it was safe to leave them at the shelter and then she put them out on the curb! This is the same woman who entered in my social security card wrong 4 days in a row, and then acts like she's never seen me before."

“Oooh - sorry to hear that.”

"I mean, I don't appear crazy, do I?"

“Of course not, ma’am.” I replied, figuring a little white lie never hurt anyone.

Two ragged men, the type my grandmother would call hobos, came up to the desk and asked me for books about shipwrecks.

“Any particular shipwrecks, like the Titanic or Andrea Doria, or just shipwrecks in general?”

“Just shipwrecks!” Seeing the little excited boys within these men tugged at my heart.

A man cut through a long line of people and interrupted me and the patron I was trying to help. “I can’t find my book! It’s supposed to be on the shelf and I can’t find it!” I told him to get to the end of the line. He reluctantly did so, oblivious of the glares of collective hate from the others in line. The whole time in line he kept trying to butt in and grab my attention. He huffed and drummed his fingers against his thighs and continued to do other maddening things until his turn came round at last.

“What book are you looking for?” I asked.

"I don't know, it's on my card!"

The book? What does everybody else know that I don't? : social skills help for adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD) : a reader-friendly guide.