silly rabbit lasers are for kids
Greetings gentle readers from the world of public libraries. I have a colorful patron story to tell. One of the joys and curses of working with the general public is you get to meet all kinds of people. I have been known to be less than kind to the ungrateful, the rude, the ignorant, the mean, oh, and children, but the crazy can sometimes be fun, if they are entertaining. I was at the desk when this gentleman, and I use the term loosely here, comes up to the desk. He didn’t look all that unusual. He had the same slack jaw and glassy stare as most of my brilliant patrons and he asked a question that started out simple enough as they always do. He told me he was looking for crystals. Now of course my first instinct is to allow my smart-ass nature to take over and tell him that this is a library and we mostly have books, however I was on my good behavior and so asked him what kind of information he wanted about crystals. Looking back I know I could have avoided the following situation if I just walked him over to the 500’s and let him loose but that wouldn’t have been any fun. I decided to proceed with the reference transaction. Further prompting on what he wanted exactly produced that he was actually looking for books about diamonds, rubies and other gemstones. As I continued to ask him questions in an attempt to get to the heart of what he really wanted instead of the vague amorphous question I starting thinking how maybe I should have gone into dentistry since getting a straight answer out of this guy was like pulling teeth. Then the bastard cracked and he finally told me he wanted information on how to use lasers to extract combustible gases from tiny air pockets within gemstones. As a general rule when someone starts asking anything about lasers my crazy sensors go off. In all fairness after the badly hidden shocked expression faded from my face I did genuinely try to find some information on the subject. For all I know he was right. I know very little about gemstones and even less about lasers. Upon not finding anything I asked him to tell me more about this procedure, where he read/heard about it, did the procedure have a name, etc. That’s when he dropped the crazy bomb on me. He told me that it was a secret government project and that he wasn’t sure what it was called and that’s why he was asking me. The slow smile that signaled my victory spread across my face. He had made his fatal error. One of the problems with crazies even the entertaining ones is that they don’t go away until they have what they want. This guy just gave me just the ammo I needed to make him happy and get him out of my line, feed into his fantasy. I told him that perhaps the fact that it’s a secret government project was why I couldn’t find anything. He bit like he was supposed to and shook his head knowingly. He then left me with another gem. He said that he would just have to experiment himself and see if he could replicate what the government was doing. I’m going on the assumption that he doesn’t have access to a laser or the gemstones with the tiny pockets of combustible gases but I kept picturing him in my head trying to get the laser he built out of toilet paper tubes and light bulbs to break open the glass costume jewelry bead he bought and it made me smile for the rest of the day. That’s the way I like my crazies, short and sweet, entertaining and disposable.