Ordure du Jour

We've suffered an exasperating streak of bio-vandalism lately, acts which I find childish, malicious and psychotic in equal measure. I won't go into too much nauseating detail - even I have my limits - but let me just say that employees keep finding book pages that have been ripped out and used for 'intimate hygiene' littering the stacks, and last night I inadvertently rolled my bike through a foamy slick of urine right outside the employee exit, a favorite bathroom destination for the homeless. Public toilets abound in this area, including at least 50 roomy stalls inside the library, but I guess defecating and urinating right outside the employee door is the antisocial's and/or homeless’ petty little way of sticking it to the library employees, of expressing their institutional anger at “the man.” I thought I heard that Singapore, to discourage public urination, started somehow running an electrical charge against the side of certain buildings and structures so that a nasty current would run back up the steam of urine and jolt the pisser. I can find no confirmation of this, however, and so it must just be an urban myth about Singapore, which is increasingly sounding more and more like my idea of utopia, as fascist and full of caning as it may be.

The other day a patron attempted to smuggle several reference books out of the library. He had the books shoved up against his body under his sweater like a suicide bomber and the outlines of the book were clearly visible. The books triggered the security alarm and a guard asked him to step inside the security office. The thief refused and protested that he had to go to the bathroom. The security guard said he could go in a minute, but that he had to settle this matter first. The security guard led the patron into the office, but then the patron began clutching his sides and removing his pants. Before the guard could utter, “Don't you dare" or "Oh no you did-n’t” the patron dropped his pants, bent over and began spraying jets of black, tarry diarrhea, like a like squid emitting puddles of ink. I have to wonder if this was some sort of biological defense mechanism, because a friend of mine’s cat voided its bowels in much the same way when it was being chased by a coyote. In any case, the guard could do nothing more than allow the man to stay put and let nature take its course, so the man sat on the bench, naked from the waist down, for a good five minutes while his bowels spasmed out. In another case of outrageous leniency at the library, this man is only banned for a year.