Cross words

Day: Monday, Mood: Turbulent, Prospects: Poor

It’s funny what can push you over the edge. I always regarded myself as a fairly stable fellow who could cope with as much nonsense as the next man. This morning, however, just proved that there is only so much a rational being can take. And although the local paper kind of summed up the incident with the headline ‘Librarian hospitalises pensioner after crossword ‘incident’’, I don’t think anyone who has suffered the torment that I have could be entirely unsympathetic with my plight.

It’s true that librarianship was my last resort. I’d learned the hard way that I was unable to cope in the real world, so surely the library would be my Valhalla. Initially, I was host to the same stereotypes as everyone else: the quiet perusal of the card catalogue, the tender silence broken only by the infrequent shushing of a tweed-swaddled crone. Hours spent gathered around the biscuit tin, cup of tea in hand, discussing that smashing book we’ve just acquired on dinosaurs with a few gentle souls. I had imagined scholarly gents looking for tomes on aviation and warships; elderly ladies searching for that illusive Mills and Boon.

Alas, I was grossly mistaken. The library, the one last profession that could be relied upon as an oasis of peace in the angst-filled sea of vocations, has gone corporate. Out with the tweed, in with the trouser suits. Out with the card catalogue, in with the Playstation. Out with the tender silence, in with the dull, moronic roar.

And the customers? I swear that every nutter in a 200 mile radius makes his/her/it’s way through the doors. They cast off the shackles of politeness, personal hygiene and respect for fellow human beings in order to abuse the facilities. Those facilities that, as I’ve heard on many, many, many occasions, ‘their taxes paid for’.

Which brings me to today’s big problem. Now I’m not fan of crosswords and I never have been. There are enough things in this world that I’ll never have time to do without partaking in that crap. That aside, I can cope with the occasional request for information leading to the revelation of 13 down in the Evening Standard’s £20 prize crossword. We appear to serve the only town where the entire population is incapable of solving ANY crossword puzzle without the help of Council owned facilities.

It’s relentless. They don’t even ask for help directly anymore, they just spout the clue like we’re all talking in code. Trigonometrical lettuce? Poultry she disturbed found on furniture? Souvenirs made yours truly repeat the wrong notes? Aghhhhh! It’s enough to make me want to kill…

Irene caught me at a particularly weak moment. There I was, struggling with the microfilm reader, when without warning comes the cry of ‘Spotted doctor of divinity eating fruit?’ I was unleashed. In fairness, I didn’t think it was necessarily a given that a 93 year old woman would have heart problems. As I explained to the paramedics, I believed the tone, language and intensity of my ‘explanation as to why I was unable to fulfill her request at this time’ was apt. They said it would have been better if I’d stopped berating her after she lost consciousness. It looks like she’s going to pull through, so no harm done really…

Day: Tuesday Mood: Raging, Outlook: Bleak

After a very unpleasant meeting with my superiors this morning (in which they used the terms ‘inconsiderate’, ‘overreaction’ and ‘therapy’ a few too many times) I was ordered to go to the hospital and see Irene in my lunch hour. Frankly, I don’t see the problem. The fact is she didn’t die and ‘nearly’ is such an ambiguous word…

And I so loathe hospitals. I think it must be because they attract the same huge quotas of elderly idiots as the library, giving it a similar ‘Land Of The Dead’ type feel. For some of us a trip to hospital is an unpleasant necessity whilst for others it seems to be a family day out. I struggled through the crowds of the unclean and comically injured to begrudgingly purchase a bag of chocolate covered peanuts and a bunch of ‘flowers’ for Irene. If that doesn’t make her drop the charges, nothing will.

She seemed timid, almost terrified at first but by the end of visiting time we’d both agreed that she was 95% to blame and wouldn’t be making my life a living hell from now on. She may have been coming into that library every day for 30 years but she’s got to learn some respect for those in charge. Hell, if I have to wear the staff issued tank-top, then I’d better be getting some God-damned respect.

Having thought that visiting the old sod would have been the low point of my day, it ironically turned out to be the highlight. On returning to the library I find out that the shockwaves caused by me laying down the law to old Fanny Crossword are still being felt and that ‘a very senior figure’ is coming for a ‘chat’; I’ve got to produce a seasonal book display by Friday; I’ve got to spend £3,000 on books about domestic animals in 2 days or we won’t get the funding again next year and I’ve been drafted onto the Playstation game-buying committee. Great.

Day: Wednesday, Mood: Abhorrent, Outlook: Stormy

Poultry Keeping For The Disabled…How to Share Healing Messages With The Horses In Your Life…Gourmet Bird Food Recipes… Professional’s Book of Gerbils…This is how I spent my morning. Before 9am this morning I was blissfully unaware as to how many books there were about Elk. But there we are.

I’ve been told to expect my meeting with The Top Brass to be unpleasant. That’s fine. If there’s one thing that the working world has taught me it’s how to kiss a whole lot of arse and mean none of it. On the subject of meaningless nonsense, I’ve handed over the responsibility for the seasonal display to young Katy. True, she may have an IQ in minus figures and be as reliable as a balsawood bomb-shelter, but it saves me doing it. Hell, its empowerment and it’s only a matter of selecting some of the less-dreadful rubbish from the shelves and cobbling it together on a table. What could possibly go wrong?

I had an afternoon in the unpleasant company of the greasy internet celebrity pervert. Well, when I say ‘in the company of’ what I really mean is ‘in the odour trail of’. This is a man who spends countless hours searching the web for female celebrity addresses so he can write them a lovely letter. No doubt he highlights the finer points of their acting/singing/modelling careers before enquiring as to whether or not they have a boyfriend and asking for some of their underwear. I tell you, I pay taxes too and this is where they’re going! So the unemployable can get free access to celebrity wank club.

And the Playstation working group is worse than I could have possibly imagined. Apparently it takes 10 of us from 3 different branches to work out that we need to buy ‘the most popular games’, excluding of course those games that include violence, drugs, sex, swearing or over-stimulation of the senses. I reckon it leaves us with ‘Dora the Explorer takes Mickey Mouse to a nice place where nothing happens’. I’m sure the teenage boys will be clamouring for it…

Day: Thursday, Mood: Furious, Outlook: Black

“Do we really need all these books on llamas?” was the cry as management reviewed yesterday’s marathon order. Well I spent the money didn’t I? Maybe the local llama keeping population is way above the national average. Maybe it will encourage those members of the public who were yet to consider animal husbandry to try keeping one in their back garden. Or maybe I just don’t care.

Anyway, putting aside the physical manifestation of thousands of pounds worth of wasted money that is the llama section, this morning I was greeted with the fruits of Katy’s labour. All of yesterday afternoon she spent on that display. Three and a half hours. Now I’ve come to realise that she’s not the sharpest tool in the box – in fact she’d no doubt lose a battle of wits with broomstick – but today she surpassed even my lowest of expectations. The challenge was simple: construct a seasonal display. Given that it’s the end of January I’d have thought winter was appropriate. Perhaps St. Valentine’s Day. Maybe even Spring, given a little optimism. What do we get? Halloween. That’s right, only 9 months early, or 3 months late depending on your view of the world. I don’t know where she found all the pumpkins. I don’t think I want to know. Stupid girl, honestly.

I’ve decided to just go with the flow on the old Playstation thingy. See I could take the opinionated, involved stance that involves effort and caring and the like. However, I felt more comfortable in the ‘distant cynicism, only appearing occasionally to disown all responsibility’ position. That way when the yobbos ask for ‘Big Titted Fast Drifting Killers 4’ and all I can offer them is ‘Eamonn Holmes’s Sudoku Challenge’ I can at least genuinely empathize and agree that, indeed, it is ‘well bad, like’.

Doom still impends like a Weight Watchers outing to Lau’s All You Can Eat Buffet as regards them from upstairs and the royal visit. No doubt they will appear at precisely the wrong moment. Not that there’s a right moment in the world of family friendly Playstation touting land of crossword answers and celebrity-stalking crotch rubbers. That’s decorated for Halloween. In January.

Day: Friday, Mood: The Usual, Outlook: Unfulfilling

For a long time we kept a golf club behind the counter. Where it came from remains a mystery, as does where it went. It’s fair to say that, if it had still been there today, Irene would now be wearing it and I would be in police custody. That’s right: not content with hospitalising a great-grandmother earlier in the week, I was fully prepared to send the old bat to the morgue.

The day had started reasonably well. I was prepared for the idiocy of our spooky setup and had even come to the conclusion that at least we had a display and I could always explain Katy away as some kind of Care in the Community case. Bathshy Billy had happily decided that he had more important things to do than track down Natasha Kaplinsky’s personal details for his ‘personal satisfaction’.

It all went wrong when she appeared in the doorway. Like a spectre. I swear it went cold when she appeared and this ungodly mist appeared. Ok, well, maybe not. But she was carrying with her the book of the damned. The tome of terror. A volume of the vile: The Bumper Book of Crosswords.

I’d just returned from lunch (where I’d decided I simply must write that strongly worded email regarding the false description of so called ‘square’ crisps) when it began. Once again it started. She began to wear me down. One damned clue at a time. (Clue)…5 minutes pass…(clue)…8 minutes pass...(clue)…3 minutes pass.

It was about this time that the teenage numb-nuts were introduced to the plethora of new Playstation buys. Precisely two minutes later they felt it necessary to force feed a pumpkin to the aforementioned games console. Paul the Pungent Pervert appeared wanting to know if he could book ‘the secluded computer in the corner’. Irene asked me (clue)…I lost it.

It’s difficult to recall exactly what I shouted but it was something like ‘Why couldn’t you have just died you rancid old crone’ I believe when Mr. Simmons from the City Library appeared to talk to me about Irene, the real irony was that my hands were reaching for her throat. He asked me why the library was covered in pumpkins, some of which appeared to be inserted into Council owned hardware, and why I was trying to choke a pensioner. The day was kind of downhill from then on…