Monday, July 4, 2011

Creepy Old Guy

Officially, librarians will tell you that we love all of our patrons, we await eagerly for them to approach the desk and ask us their questions.  This is mostly true.  Mostly.

Unofficially, there are patrons that make us cringe when we see them approaching.  There are the odiferous folk for whom we keep the can of air freshener behind the desk.  There are the ones who steal the toilet paper and air fresheners out of the bathroom, but you can't prove it.  There are those whom you know don't like you, and you don't like them, but you smile and bear it instead of telling him/her to go fuck themselves.  Professionalism is key!

And then... there's the Creepy Old Guy. 

Granted, we have many older male patrons who give the female employees slight cases of the heebie jeebies, but this particular man takes the cake.  I'm not sure how many clothes are in his closet, but his "uniform" consists of loose khakis (beginning to fall down), a short sleeve shirt that's completely unbuttoned, and a white tank top (wife beater) about two sizes too large.  He comes in with his bag of books thrown over his rolling walker and shuffles to the front desk.  He then proceeds to put the bag on the desk and give whichever female the once over (since we only have one token guybrarian, it's usually a female at the desk).  After doing so, he'll unload his books from his bag, one at a time, while staring said librarian down.  Most of us will take the books as he does this, avoiding looking at the man directly. 

But then, he's done.  No more books.  But he continues to stand there, staring down your chest.  On most occasions, whomever is helping Creepy Old Guy will wait a beat and then announce "That's it!  You've turned everything in." or "Thanks!  That's got you!" or "All in, anything else?" 

He continues to stand there, acting like he didn't hear you.  "Sir, that's it.  Anything else?"

I swear to the heavens above that he will lick his lips, slowly raise his eyes from your chest, smile (eek), grab his bag and walk away.  When he returns with his books to take home, it's the same routine.  Several of us have done the obvious - squat a bit to see if we can catch his eye and let him know that we see him staring down our books, but he doesn't care.  He just takes the opportunity to smile wider, like there's nothing we can do about it.  One of my coworkers has considered just pulling her shirt down and giving him an eyeful, but none of us want to be responsible for calling 911 and having to fill out an incident report.

Personally, I think the man needs the walker from years of bending over, looking at women's chests.