Working in a library is an interesting experience. For example:
- A girl just answered her loudly ringing phone right next to a sign that had QUIET ROOM written on it. Underneath that it said, "This room is a designated quiet area for silent work and study. Please switch your mobile phones to silent. Phone calls and conversations can occur in other rooms of the Library. Thank you for your cooperation".
I am sitting with some State Library regulars. It's like Cheers, for us. Where everybody knows your name. Well, not your name exactly, but there's a fair bit of genial nodding that goes on. We waited for a while and let Loudy Talky Girl alone in case she wanted to quickly tell the person to call her back in five. After a while, she got louder. The regulars exchanged looks. Almost as one, we turned around and looked sternly at her. I gestured towards the sign as though perhaps it was positioned inconveniently and she couldn't quite see it.
She waved at us crossly and left.
All she was doing was reading an MX anyway. Hardly even deserved to BE here.
Peehee!
- Another girl, earlier, was sitting back from her study, peering into her mobile phone. It took me a while to figure out that she had the camera function turned on and was using it as a mirror. My phone doesn't allow me to do that, thank heavens, but when I walked past her I realised she was looking at herself critically in the phone-as-camera-as-mirror device. She was beautiful. She looked completely revolted. After a while she stood up and left. I wanted to tell her she looked lovely, but it didn't seem to be something she would necessarily believe. I wondered if it was her own appearance that made her decide to leave, or was she going anyway.
- At 12.12pm, a man wobbled in to the arts reading room. "Anyone here know where the toilets are?" he slurred. We pointed him in the right direction and he went the opposite way. He was as drunk as a skunk.
- A bloke in the Arts Reading Room, a regular like myself, sits for a great part of the day conducting with one hand while he listens to music.
It takes, as they say, all types. Although those with loudly ringing mobile phones and Loudy Talkie Voices may take themselves elsewhere please, lest they face the pious wrath of the superior regulars. Like those people at swimming pools who grunt furiously at you when you're swimming too slowly in a lane marked Fast, we are your greatest critic. Approach with caution.