Tales From The "liberrycast"

Summer Reading, oh how it burns! Yes, it's the time of year when snot-nosed crumb-crunchers descend upon the "liberry" to craft crafts, hear stories, fill out reading logs and create chaos. That is, if their parents can manage to get them signed up to begin with. And who is the queen of Summer Reading Chaos? Why our old nemesis, Little Kayla, of course. (This episode also includes a cameo by Parka as well as one by his shag carpet of torso hair.)

From the cast of 16 And Pregnant to the Octomom, bad moms are in the news and are seemingly more common than ever before. And while the majority of the moms who I knew at the "liberry" were awesome, there were a handful whose parenting skills I at least had to question, when not being actively driven nuts by the ladies themselves. Welcome to the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Bad Mother's Day Special.

Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Theatre is proud to present, the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" Christmas Special: "A Christmas Carol Satan." Hark back to a time and possible alternate reality where Mrs. Carol Satan remained the Nastiest Patron Ever and we the "liberry" staff became bloodthirsty dispensers of "liberry" justice.  This dispensed with, the Ghost of Carol Satan and her other newly and rapidly growing number of deceased Rogue Patron brethren must band together to save the soul of the next rogue in line for a killin', before their eternity becomes any more hellish.

When one works in a library, one hears a lot of conversations. Often they arrive in person, often by phone and sometimes by second hand retellings of tales from fellow employees. When I heard a good one, I tried to write it down for use on the blog. Sometimes they were funny. Other times just odd. And occasionally they were downright terrifying. These are a few of my favorites. (Guest starring Rogue Patrons: Mrs. Carol Satan and Barbara Turdmurkle)

The second episode of the LiberryCAST features a classic story of both poor customer service and insane customer behavior.  It also marks the debut appearance of long time "Liberry" Rogue Barbara Turdmurkle on the podcast.

Okay, so way back in Season 1 Episode 16 of this podcast, I did an episode called Stanky Patrons and Other Dusty Turds.  In that, I introduced the concept of the woefully stinky patrons we often had to deal with at my "liberry" and it’s the first appearance of their king, Mr. Stanky.  And because the entry I was adapting in it ended with a quote about stinky patrons, originally penned by my friend and former library worker Glen B, I decided to call Glen up and have him read his own damn quote.  And afterward, we'd just shoot the shit for a while since we don't get to very often. Of the hour and two minutes we talked, I wound up only using 27 minutes for the podcast, which was mainly where the library talk happened.  But I threatened that one day I would release the rest of it because it too was good stuff.  Today is that day. If you've already heard Episode 16, the first 27 minutes will seem awfully familiar (though with a few DVD extra changes from the or

Over the two years that I've been adapting entries from the Tales from the "Liberry" blog, there have been occasions when I've recorded entries for an episode and then removed them during editing.  Sometimes this was for purposes of keeping an episode below a certain length; sometimes because another entry in the same episode made basically the same point; sometimes because the entry just wasn't funny or satisfying to begin with; and sometimes because the sound quality of the recorded file turned out to be abominable.  Most of the time, I deleted those lost files.  But once in a while, I saved them for a rainy day, thinking I might one day need a B-Sides episode I could quickly throw together in case I needed a week off.  (Unlike last week, which I just took off with no substitutions.) This week's special episode presents a few of those saved entries, warts and all.  Interspersed between them, however, are a few tales featuring a member of the "Liberry" Rog

For the penultimate episode of this podcast, I chose to tell some stories `bout my goodly wife. Unfortunately, because I recorded this particular episode, like, a month and a half ago, I've been doing callbacks to the references in it not realizing I hadn't made them yet. Among these references were the medical mission trip to Central America we both took in the mid oughts, and a brain tumor scare. One of those stories gets told this week. But several episodes back I also referred to the first of the rare occasions when I was able to actually surprise my wife with a gift on one of her major days. That story appears here as well. And, to wrap things up, I have a never-before-blogged-or-really-told tale from our time on the aforementioned mission trip--a story that involves giant condoms.

And now, continuing my tale of finding myself in the untenable (yet fun) position of being an unreliable narrator of my own blog, today's podcast presents the second part of the Moving Days episode.  In it we are given our final appearance of the Patron Who Must Not Be Named, as well as the penultimate appearances of some other rogue patrons.

One of the most astounding figures I encountered during my time at the "liberry" was our board president, Mr. Kreskin (not his real name).  He was a very nice and capable human being, tirelessly juggling multiple complicated projects on the library's behalf.  And from those projects arose many questions, only our two librarians were capable of answering for him.  Unfortunately the ONLY time he was ever known to phone us at all were on the rare days when both librarians were out of town and unavailable.  It was more reliable than Old Faithful. (This episode also includes a cameo by Mrs. Carol Satan.)

When writing the original Tales from the "Liberry" blog, I often wrote multi-part stories some of which would span a week at a time.  In July of 2008, I began a 21 part epic story called Moving Days that not only chronicled the journey my wife and I made in moving from Tri-Metro to a new home in Borderland, but also my library's move into a brand new building.  And I finished that epic story in September.   The thing is, I'd been playing something of the unreliable narrator for a while before starting that particular tale.  This was mostly due to the fact that I'd not actually alerted any of my readers to my library moving buildings, even though that particular move had occurred well over a year previous.  Yep.  Just forgot to mention it.  Hoped no one noticed.  Just went right on writing stories set within the new library, but failed to make note that the tales occurred in a new library.  And since you can't move the

Booksales. They're a necessary evil when it comes to "liberries." Where else are we going to get rid of the piles upon donated piles of Chicken Soup for the Dickweed's Soul, or any given Mitch Albom book? But they're a colossal pain in the ass to have to organize, physically set up, and, eventually, take down, not to mention all those people you have to turn away donations from cause they insist on trying to give you the one thing you DO NOT ACCEPT: text books. And there's the matter of the horrible fate that awaits all the copies of The Five People You Meet in My Ass that are left over after the sale is through. Oh, and then there are the asshat used book sellers who refuse to play fair with other customers, try to sneak early peeks at potential prized tomes and who throw loud public tantrums when confronted about their asshattery. We know how to deal with them, as you shall see when you listen to this week's ep. SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Mr. Smiley, 2nd Grumpiest Old Man in All the World.

This is a special episode that doesn't directly adapt any of the entries from my original Tales from the "Liberry" blog, but which does feature an interview with a fellow former library blogger who was an influence on my blog. Natalie Biz was the author of Bizgirl, a library blog in which we got to read her adventures as a 20-something librarian in New Zealand. Along the way, we meet many of her coworkers and patrons, including a kid called Artemis who proved to be wildly inventive. When I first thought about what I wanted to achieve with the Tales from the "LiberryCAST" as a whole, interviewing Natalie was top of the list. For she managed to achieve a degree of library blogging fame that probably surpasses that of any other library blogger, at least to my knowledge. For Natalie was the first library blogger I was aware of to be fired from her job due to her blog. And the story of how her employers came to learn of her blog is one for the ages. So I thought it best to let Natalie tell her own story, via

There are lots of blogs out there, and some of the bloggers who blog upon them blog about their workplace, coworkers and sundry crazy people they encounter on a daily basis. One does not have to look very far before discovering stories of bloggers who were busted (outed) as a workplace blogger and even horror stories of these busted bloggers subsequently being fired (or Dooced) for it. One might wonder, did I as a library blogger ever come close to such a Doocing scenario? Or, at the very least, was I ever "busted" as a "liberry" blogger? The answer (as you bloody well learned in Episode 121) is, of course, yes. But that was far from the only busting incident I endured. Nay, there were several others, the most disturbing of which was the day my bosses were told of my blog by none other than a former "liberry" employee. But which one? Find out in this week's podcast!

An odd tale of an odd bird encountered in the wild, AWAY from the "liberry" proper. Doc Ock Fetishist Woman was never a patron, but she was about as nutty as any of our patrons ever got. Not a bad human being in the slightest, just exasperating. In fact, if she has committed any crime, it's probably that she cares too much... about inanimate objects. Also included in this tale is the story of the first time I was busted as a "liberry" blogger. Having your secret identity revealed to you is always disconcerting, but is even more bewildering when it comes with a large dollop of synchronicity on top.

Pedophiles: Public enemy #1. You've tried smelly sprays and perverticides, but pedophiles can smell too. They avoid sprayed areas and keep coming back for more. What you need is CHESTERKILL... ...Oh, I can't do it anymore. I so want to make light of our library's resident pedophile Chester the (Potential) Molester, but I just can't stand to do it. He was never a joke to us when I worked there and he's still not now. Unfortunately, guys like Chester, who have more than a dusting of interest in underage girls, are a part of life when you work in a library. They don't tell you in the interview that it's part of your job to defend the patrons these sick bastards might (or might not) like to prey upon. But when you see them in action, you gladly do it because every fiber of your being screams for you to. And Chester was particularly infuriating for many reasons, but two primary ones: 1) monitoring Chester's activities when he's in the building becomes a full time job from the moment he

I personally had many enemies (rogue patrons) during the writing of the original Tales from the "Liberry" blog.  However, the collective library staff and at least one of the members of its board of directors had an arch nemesis for the better part of a year--a "book hoarding bizatch" I called Kammy K.  She was a lady who managed to keep an interlibrary loaned book on the topic of retarding the effects of the aging process for well over 9 months, resulting in our library being banned from any more loans from the library that had loaned it to us.  No amount of letters, phone calls, or personal visits we attempted were met with any success in getting it back, to the point that legal action was our only recourse.  Learn how it all came to a head in this very podcast Also features an appearance by Mrs. Carol Satan and the penultimate podcast appearance by Chester the (Potential) Molester.

An assemblage of seemingly random tales (no, I didn't roll actual dice to choose them this time), of fun, frustrating, exuberant, and occasionally mystifying experiences I had from across the spectrum of my "liberry" career.  Guest stars include, Cap'n Crossdresser, Barbara Turdmurkle (though you have to squint to see her), a bunch of patrons asking questions with perilously obvious answers, and a rather famous personage once portrayed by Mr. Robin Williams.