Moleman Bites Back!

Moleman, whose behavior, I've decided, can only be explained by the presence of an egg sized tumor pressing against his frontal lobe, wrote my manager an e-mail with his version of the events. I knew I had nothing to worry about because there were tons of witnesses and my manager is a reasonable man who has his staff’s back. My manager has also had a long history with Moleman, although he’s missed the darker end of the spectrum of Moleman’s behavior because Moleman is sly and shrewd enough only to reveal his true demonic self when they’re no men around, which is probably why he remains alive today. I was relieved that I didn’t have to worry about it becoming our own miniature Rashonon because, of course, my colleagues corroborated my version of what had happened. His e-mail was full of errors, contradictions, and attempts at legalese that were not so much pompous as they were sad and pathetic. Its content was more damning than anything I said because in it he admitted to standing over the other female patron and explained his reasons why.



First he conceded that perhaps it was unwise of him to stand over the tiny Chinese woman, but she was definitely ‘asking for it’ and needed to know how it felt to be ‘pestered’ like he had felt ‘pestered’ by her and (unbelievable!) that he was simply trying to teach her some manners. He didn’t seem to understand how a man screaming and looming over a woman he outweighed by 100 pounds might be interpreted as a threatening act and harassment, not the helpful lesson in etiquette, civility and American mores that he intended it to be. Thank you cultural ambassador Moleman for trying to bridge the cultural divide and educate her on the American way of doing things! Perhaps you should volunteer at the immigration welcome center.



He didn’t help his case any when he brought up a previous incident when I told him to watch his language after he screamed the "f" word about 20 times over having to pay some fines. He wrote that even though he believed it was an issue of free speech that he be able to scream the f word in the library, (Moleman, champion of civil liberties!) he decided not to say it in front of me anymore because I had asked him not to, as if my request were unreasonable and he was humoring a delicate, priggish woman because he is such a sensitive, accomodating gentleman. He wanted it to be acknowledged that, although he didn’t feel like he was under any obligation to, he refrained from using any profanity during our latest 'contretemps' (yes, that is the word he used) as a 'curiosity,' (he had obviously misspelled courtesy and the spellchecker had changed courtesy to curiosity). That's right, he acted liked he should be given a commendation from the mayor and the keys to the city for not screaming the word 'fuck' in a library full of children. Anyway, security has sworn to be there on the next night when I work alone and he usually comes in. They usually send these two large, intimidating African-American women who brook absolutely no nonsense and suffer no fools and eat much scarier, truly raving psychotic homeless at the main for breakfast, so I'm looking forward to seeing if tries anything with them.