No Shit Sherlock Award

 Today’s recipient of the No Shit, Sherlock award. They are awarded for Excellence in Detecting the Obvious…

The following rant is by no way an indictment of libraries as they are little gems tucked into the muck of society. Unfortunately, libraries are staffed by people and people tend to suck.

I like big books and I cannot lie

When I read, sometimes I read one book, and sometimes I read fifty at a time. This was one of the latter examples. I had about twenty or so books to return and a few DVDs. The movies were late, and I knew I was going to have massive fines.

One of the little idiosyncrasies of the local branch is that they only do cash for payment of fines. I guess they used to take plastic? But that predates my patronage, and I was not carrying enough cash to pay these fines in particular. So when I was done emptying my canvas bag and stacking the books on the counter, the first thing I said was “I have some books and DVDs to return AND the DVDs are late, there will be fines.”

This does not bode well

Everything seems to be going well, the librarian (this one a dude I have never seen before behind the desk at this location) checks in all the books, and another patron makes a joke about knowing how come he couldn’t find anything to read. Ha ha. An attempt was made to imply that I had checked out a lot of books.

Good for you, he says. Really? Ok.

I guess it is something of an accomplishment for someone who isn’t me. I let it pass because how could he know that he ain’t seen nothin’ yet? But I digress.

When the librarian gets to the DVDs, he checks in the first one and says “Some of these are late.”

Duh? Didn’t I already tell you that? This doesn’t bode well.

After the librarian has checked in the last DVD, he asks me for my library card to complete the transaction, when he opens his mouth to ask “Did you know you have some fines?” OMG. Really? Was he not paying attention?

Good job stating the obvious and congratulations for not listening in advance.

Hurray to today’s award recipient.