Scissor Thief

There are days when people rub me wrong, for reasons that aren’t necessarily in some kind of written etiquette guide.

For instance, recently I was at the reference desk cutting out images for a display, and a man walked past the desk, saw me using the scissors, and immediately asked if he could use them.

Does he not see that I’m in the middle of using them? No, he sees. Does he think that I’m supposed to stop mid-cut and hand him my scissors because he’s suddenly struck by the idea that he needs to borrow them for something he wasn’t even approaching me for? Yep.

This caused me to freeze and stare at him, eyes wide, scissors open and in the middle of splaying a sheet of paper. My hesitation caused him to reach across the desk, without waiting for me to respond by handing him the very utensils I was in the middle of using, without question. If my partner at the desk hadn’t reached into the drawer to offer up a different pair of scissors, I firmly believe this man would have peeled my fingers off the handle and taken the instrument from me, with me sitting there silently, slack-jawed, unable to react.

Even children know to ask if they can borrow something when I’m finished using them, or ask if I have a spare pair of scissors. This makes me wonder just how far people will go with their I-come-first demands from us.

Would they ask for the glasses off my face if their pair broke and they needed to see something?

If they spilled something on their shirt, would they ask for mine?

Could I expect someone to peel the Band-aid off my finger to place on their own in the event that they receive a papercut?

These might sound extreme, even creepy, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

I’ve had complete strangers ask if they can have a drink from my bottle of pop because they’re thirsty, or ask me for money, or for a ride somewhere. They have no qualms about violating my personal space or asking for inappropriate favors or services. Not just that, but they have actually asked me to not only break rules for them, but commit what I would consider a crime by pretending I found something on the shelf so I can waive their fines, or asking if I’d give them an item and pretend like it was damaged enough to withdraw it and give it away. They frequently ask if they can just copy a cassette or CD from another library’s set, to replace the piece they lost from an audiobook. We’re not talking about the people who take CDs home just to burn them, but people who are trying to get out of paying for damage by illegally making copies to cover it up. As if no one would notice the solitary, silver Memorex CD among eight others, with human scrawl declaring it part of the set. Why not? More than once we’ve received torn books returned to us with DUCT TAPE holding the pages together, as if this was some kind of reasonable way to mend a book without us noticing.

Just last week one of the clerks had a patron screaming at her for so long that she ended up in tears because this patron insisted vehemently that she returned an audiobook. Everyone knew she didn’t because she had so often used this tactic before, and then found the item she swore she returned, and had to fess up and pay her fine. So when the woman came into the library a few days later and was visibly hiding something and looking around suspiciously, one of the clerks followed her out to the stacks, where she was witnessed putting an audiobook onto the shelf. The clerk could see it was the very audiobook that had caused such a ruckus just a few days before, and she swiped it back off the shelf to confront the patron. The woman had scurried off to the circulation desk to demand someone check the shelves again, but the cynical clerk rounded the corner with the audiobook in hand, quick to confront her about the deception. Even though she’d been followed and someone witnessed her putting the item on the shelf, she stood there denying it, accusing the clerk of waiting for her to come in again so they could frame her like this. It’s scary what people will say and do to our employees to avoid responsibility. If three people hadn’t been involved in watching her, with one following her, I wonder if management might have actually believed this patron.

Another woman claimed that the fines on her account were not her own, but those of her bad twin sister who fraudulently used her card.

At one point last week, there was a mother and adult daughter pair who came into the library claiming they’d never lived in the area and wanted to obtain new library cards. A quick search turned up records on them from a few years earlier, with the daughter owing over $80 and the mother owing $30. Due to the hefty amount, every effort was made to verify that these were in fact the same people. The birthdays matched, the parent name in the daughter’s account matched, and the names matched, down to the unusual spelling. One of the pair had a mugshot still in the system from her last card, and the picture even matched. Still this pair claimed to have never lived in the area and to not owe anything on existing accounts. For reasons that were unclear, this pair put up such a huge fuss, screaming, swearing, demanding management, and totally disrupting the entire building, yet no one asked them to leave. They eventually left on their own, only to return shortly thereafter with a police officer. The officer wasn’t quite sure why his presence was required, and in no uncertain terms told the women that he had no authority over our records and alleged library fines, but his presence was still a bit comforting to the staff, who thought these women were nuts. For even more elusive reasons, they issued a new card to the mother only, and this pair then checked out a heap of material. Later, when the manager had all the information, she barred the new account laid down the law about these two being responsible for their previous fines.

While all these assaults are clearly serious signs of something being wrong with mankind, I do believe the man who was ready to pry my scissors out of my hand for his own personal use is somehow a greater offense. Screaming, shouting and lying are almost more normal and expected than someone who would take the very item out of your hand, without your approval. I’m not quite sure why, but that’s one of the most shocking and offensive things I’ve experienced in the library. More so than the poo. More so than the stalkers. And more so than raving lunatics.

Thankfully my partner was there to rescue us both by providing this man with his own scissors to use.

He might not have tried this if he knew about all the deaths I’ve plotted with office supplies.