all in a day's work....

who thinks libraries are always quiet? serene? a place to learn?

many, which is all good.

but funny how one popular free thing can turn people into maniacs...

we have this program where many twin cities museums offer admission passes if you check them out at your local library.

they get 2-4 folks in for free.

some aren't museum passes...they are things like admission to the mn zoo.

or the landscape arboretum.

cool places that are usually $10 or so to get into.

plus sometimes parking.

well the zoo passes this summer have gotten so crazy popular that folks line up in the lobby to get them. all TWO of them remember.

one lady a few days ago, i heard through a coworker, blocked the front door before opening sitting in a chair so she would be the first one to get the zoo pass since she had just missed it the day before.

friday we had a physical clawing-at-each-other-girl-fight about them.

no police were called but two grown women were literally trying to wrench out of each others hands these hallowed passes. (THREE women wanted them and, i'm not a math girl, but with only two available, it quickly became a brawl with the numbers not in their favor...)

all in the public eye. other patrons standing there with wide eyed wonder. kids coming in the door still.....

all over really nothing that big a deal. sheesh. PAY the $10 people....i realize a free thing is good, but physical battery is not the way to solve the problem.

and our library isn't the only one these get fought over or run full speed at when the doors open for the day. in our little suburb, it could almost be an olympic event watching the pass dash come toward you, the librarian on guard for what could happen next....

now the zoo passes at our library have moved from being out with the rest to behind the referencee desk so that folks can run to be the first ones *there* to get them.

oh, and did i mention one of the first comments i heard a page (someone who shelves books in our library) say to a supervisor yesterday?

"um yeah, there's a bottle of vodka over in the stacks on the shelf"

the joys of working in a library :)
~jd