i'll mail you a dollar if you remember where I first posted this.
_____________________
You could probably get away with calling me what ever your mind can think
of and I would be none the wiser. But if you insist on knowing my real name I will tell you. It is Alan Greer. I have middle name as well but its unimportant and kind of silly anyways. I am currently employed at the Bremerton branch of the Central Kitsap Library although I really have no business being here. I sort of bluffed my way into the job. I am shy but for some reason I do really well at interviews and on top of that I have a creative and sometimes quick imagination. The interview was short and the interviewer walked away thinking that I was a published poet and had a passion for reading along with four years of library experience. It was not all a lie. I did have a couple poems published when I was a kid in some stupid on line contest thing. I also do love to read and have been visiting libraries ever since I was a child. Just do not ask me a damm thing about the dewy decimal system. Luckily we have computers and databases and maps of the library around here or I would have probably been outed and have lost my job months ago. I can here you asking me why I did not just go out and work fast food like ever other twenty year old nobody who has no clue what he wants to do with his life. I did try that. It lasted about six months actually. I worked the grill at a local McDonalds.
I bust my ass making burgers and fries and scraping grease out from under and behind the stove. I probably still have scars from the grease burns. I was always cheerful and never said no when they asked me to stay late and close. I even cleaned the bathrooms once or twice. Then one Saturday morning around six AM I got a phone call from my manager. She wanted me to come in to work. I told her that I was pretty sure that it was my day off. She agreed of course and then started to batter me with your a hard worker speeches and tried to explain that in life sometimes things do not go according to schedule. My first thought was to hang up the phone. My second thought was not really a thought so much as it was an out pouring of blabbering about how I am the hardest worker she has and how I hope she missed me because I quit. I was then told that normally a two weeks notice is given for these sorts of things. I told her not to worry and that if she wanted she could keep paying me for two weeks but I still was not going to show up to scrape grease off the god damm grill for some stupid inspection anymore. Not only was that not going to happen but I also would not be showing up to work for her at all anymore. The next thing I heard was the date and time that I could show up to return my uniform and collect my last check. Then she hung up. As I put my phone back onto the receiver I thought that I probably should have been nicer to the poor lady. She was a decent person to work for and she tried her best to encourage people to take pride in what they do. But I was not nice. And at that point there was really nothing I could do about it. So I just rolled over and went back to bed. I decided that I would never work food service again. So that is the reason why I am now currently a book slinger at the local library. Despite me really having no idea about my job, it is not such a bad place to work. As I said before I really do enjoy reading and the people I work with are nice enough. It also gives me a chance to meet all sorts of different types of personalities. One of my past times is people watching and there is certainly no shortage of different sorts of people at a library. From the do it yourself mechanic to the junior college student trying to write a term paper on his impression of the philosophies of Camus. They are all here at one time or another. But I digress. I am trying to tell a story here and I ended up giving you my life history.
The library today has been busier then normal. A lot of students have been in and out all day.
Sundays are supposed to be relaxing not all active and lively. It is like every teacher in town told their student to to the library this weekend and find a good book to read and every single student waited till the last minute to go.
'Where can I find that one book by the guy who just died? The one about the war?'
Slaughter House Five I ask?
'Yeah Yeah I think thats it'
Kurt Vonnegut wrote it and yes he did just die. Try fiction. Most likely in the Vs. If you still have trouble finding it, go over there and type the book name in the computer terminal and it will tell you if it is available at any of our other branches. I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice but it was unavoidable. I get easily annoyed at people who do not understand alphabetical order and the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Don't they teach kids anything at school these days?
My god I sound like an old man. I am only twenty for Christ's sake. I was in school myself about five minutes ago.
I don't think she caught the sarcasm because she just politely thanked me and walked off towards the non-fiction section. I opened my mouth to try and correct her but was promptly cut off by what can only be described as a blizzard of books and glass and pencils and bits of paper and the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life. And then, life stopped for just a moment as if to allow me to see the flurry of knowledge falling into chaos. But the moment passed and time caught up with me. I found my self losing touch with gravity and taking flight towards the back wall. Despite the epic pandaemonium I still had a moment or two mid flight that gave my brain a chance to think one single thought. And for some strange reason that thought was me wondering weather or not that girl realized she was walking towards the wrong section of the library before the whirlwind and explosion threw the library in its own personal bit of anarchy. What an odd thing to think while being hurled at a wall by some sort of explosion. Just as the thought was finishing up I was slammed against the wall behind the counter.
And then there was blackness.
_________________________
-Me
_____________________
You could probably get away with calling me what ever your mind can think
of and I would be none the wiser. But if you insist on knowing my real name I will tell you. It is Alan Greer. I have middle name as well but its unimportant and kind of silly anyways. I am currently employed at the Bremerton branch of the Central Kitsap Library although I really have no business being here. I sort of bluffed my way into the job. I am shy but for some reason I do really well at interviews and on top of that I have a creative and sometimes quick imagination. The interview was short and the interviewer walked away thinking that I was a published poet and had a passion for reading along with four years of library experience. It was not all a lie. I did have a couple poems published when I was a kid in some stupid on line contest thing. I also do love to read and have been visiting libraries ever since I was a child. Just do not ask me a damm thing about the dewy decimal system. Luckily we have computers and databases and maps of the library around here or I would have probably been outed and have lost my job months ago. I can here you asking me why I did not just go out and work fast food like ever other twenty year old nobody who has no clue what he wants to do with his life. I did try that. It lasted about six months actually. I worked the grill at a local McDonalds.
I bust my ass making burgers and fries and scraping grease out from under and behind the stove. I probably still have scars from the grease burns. I was always cheerful and never said no when they asked me to stay late and close. I even cleaned the bathrooms once or twice. Then one Saturday morning around six AM I got a phone call from my manager. She wanted me to come in to work. I told her that I was pretty sure that it was my day off. She agreed of course and then started to batter me with your a hard worker speeches and tried to explain that in life sometimes things do not go according to schedule. My first thought was to hang up the phone. My second thought was not really a thought so much as it was an out pouring of blabbering about how I am the hardest worker she has and how I hope she missed me because I quit. I was then told that normally a two weeks notice is given for these sorts of things. I told her not to worry and that if she wanted she could keep paying me for two weeks but I still was not going to show up to scrape grease off the god damm grill for some stupid inspection anymore. Not only was that not going to happen but I also would not be showing up to work for her at all anymore. The next thing I heard was the date and time that I could show up to return my uniform and collect my last check. Then she hung up. As I put my phone back onto the receiver I thought that I probably should have been nicer to the poor lady. She was a decent person to work for and she tried her best to encourage people to take pride in what they do. But I was not nice. And at that point there was really nothing I could do about it. So I just rolled over and went back to bed. I decided that I would never work food service again. So that is the reason why I am now currently a book slinger at the local library. Despite me really having no idea about my job, it is not such a bad place to work. As I said before I really do enjoy reading and the people I work with are nice enough. It also gives me a chance to meet all sorts of different types of personalities. One of my past times is people watching and there is certainly no shortage of different sorts of people at a library. From the do it yourself mechanic to the junior college student trying to write a term paper on his impression of the philosophies of Camus. They are all here at one time or another. But I digress. I am trying to tell a story here and I ended up giving you my life history.
The library today has been busier then normal. A lot of students have been in and out all day.
Sundays are supposed to be relaxing not all active and lively. It is like every teacher in town told their student to to the library this weekend and find a good book to read and every single student waited till the last minute to go.
'Where can I find that one book by the guy who just died? The one about the war?'
Slaughter House Five I ask?
'Yeah Yeah I think thats it'
Kurt Vonnegut wrote it and yes he did just die. Try fiction. Most likely in the Vs. If you still have trouble finding it, go over there and type the book name in the computer terminal and it will tell you if it is available at any of our other branches. I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice but it was unavoidable. I get easily annoyed at people who do not understand alphabetical order and the difference between fiction and non-fiction. Don't they teach kids anything at school these days?
My god I sound like an old man. I am only twenty for Christ's sake. I was in school myself about five minutes ago.
I don't think she caught the sarcasm because she just politely thanked me and walked off towards the non-fiction section. I opened my mouth to try and correct her but was promptly cut off by what can only be described as a blizzard of books and glass and pencils and bits of paper and the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life. And then, life stopped for just a moment as if to allow me to see the flurry of knowledge falling into chaos. But the moment passed and time caught up with me. I found my self losing touch with gravity and taking flight towards the back wall. Despite the epic pandaemonium I still had a moment or two mid flight that gave my brain a chance to think one single thought. And for some strange reason that thought was me wondering weather or not that girl realized she was walking towards the wrong section of the library before the whirlwind and explosion threw the library in its own personal bit of anarchy. What an odd thing to think while being hurled at a wall by some sort of explosion. Just as the thought was finishing up I was slammed against the wall behind the counter.
And then there was blackness.
_________________________
-Me
I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!!