Regulars

Every public library has regulars who are there nearly every day, and my library is no exception. Most of them are, well, a bit odd.

For instance, there's the guy the staff calls "Hairy Legs" for obvious reasons. He's in his late 50s and I suppose he's retired because he spends most of his days in the library. He stands impatiently outside the front door at opening time and rushes in the second the doors are open to get on his favorite computer (#12) before anyone else gets to it. In order to do that, he literally runs to press the Enter key on computers 1-11 to make the signup system think someone is signing in to use those computers so he can get #12. It causes a lot of confusion for everyone who is right behind him (there is always a line to get on the computers when we open) so I asked him not to do it anymore. I thought he had stopped, but I found out that he still does it, but only when I'm not around.

After several hours on the computer he then signs up for a study room so he can "work on his book." Yeah, right - most of the time he's in there sleeping. Definitely against our policy but I just don't have the energy to fight him on it.

He's a big tattletale, too, always telling us whenever he thinks someone else isn't following the rules. Ironic, since he never does himself. Sigh...

Then there's the shushing lady. She's in every day playing computer games from a thumb drive she brings with her. I'd say she's in her late 30s or early 40s, and the main thing I notice about her is that she HATES anyone making noise, especially children. Lots of families use my library so we often have kids crying, usually as their parents are checking out. The minute this woman hears a kid crying she shouts "Be QUIET!" or "Oh, my god!" to let the child know that she is not pleased. I'm sure this is an effective way to quiet the child, who is usually all the way across the room. She got into it the other day with the guy on the computer next to her because he tried to get her to chill out about another screaming child. I mean, the kid was with his mom who was just trying to get her books checked out. She couldn't get him to be quiet (you know, sometimes there's NOTHING you can do), and she was trying to get out of the library as quickly as possible, but the shushing woman is so self-centered that she didn't care what the situation was. The ironic thing is that she has her headphones turned up so loud that we can hear her stupid game all the way over at the reference desk. We all hate her because she's just so mean.

Oh, and I can't forget our resident perv. Mid-40s, ruddy, pock-marked complexion, beer gut, spends hours on the computer looking at photos of scantily clad (but not nude) young women and chatting with I don't know who. He's often on his bluetooth as well. He used to be very loud on the phone until I went over and told him to quiet down a few weeks ago. He got PO'd, of course, and raised his voice at me (he's kinda scary) but since then has been pretty quiet. I guess he knows we can kick him out at any time, so he's always just on the edge of violating our code of conduct, but never really goes across that line.

And then there's our live-in family. For the last two months we have had a family of four literally living in the library. They are there every day from the minute we open until the minute we close, even on weekends. Mom & dad don't speak English very well (I think they are Russian, which is neither here nor there but I think it's sort of interesting) so their two kids do most of the talking for the family. The parents & teenage son all get on a computer immediately and spend their entire day doing that. (I should say here that we are "blessed" with enough public computers so that there's almost never a time when all computers are full - therefore, everyone can stay on their computer pretty much as long as they want because there's never a queue on the signup system. Other than first thing in the morning when everyone comes in at the same time, there's never anyone waiting to get on a computer.)

They wouldn't really be a problem except for their 6-year-old daughter. Mom & dad leave her with her teenage brother in the teen area, where she wreaks havoc all day long. They all pretty much ignore her, so she's always getting into something. The other day I saw her grabbing handfuls of rubber bands out of our rubber band can that we leave out for people to use when they pick up their hold requests. Anyway, she was just taking them out and strewing them all over the place. I often find big stacks of stuff just pulled off the shelves and scattered about, and I'm pretty sure she's the culprit. Today I found her pressing buttons at random on the printer because she found out that she could print out the configuration sheets and test prints that way. She had a stack of paper a quarter of an inch thick! And when I did a cleanup in the teen area I found juice boxes and cheese stick wrappers all over the place. I guess that's their regular diet.

I've debated about kicking them out but it's obvious they don't have anywhere else to go. And other than the daughter, they really don't cause any problems. And in her case, heck, she's only 6 years old! She doesn't know how to behave, and they obviously aren't teaching her. It's actually a pretty sad situation.

We have other regulars, too - people who spend hours just hanging out, looking at magazines, reading books, using computers. Not that there's anything wrong with that - it's what we DO. But I often wonder what their life must be like that spending all day every day at the public library is the most appealing option.