Drunk Natty Dread

He approached me twice. The first time he asked me where the restroom is. I told him and he just stood at the counter. He then asked me something I didn't understand and proceeded to pull his California Identification and platinum visa out of his wallet and place them on the counter in front of me.

He asked me when the last spare the air day was. I told him that it was yesterday. He asked me what day that was. I told him it was Monday June 26th, yesterday. This whole transaction took forever because he was mumbling and I couldn't understand half of what he was saying. He decided that he wanted a print out of the spare the air days. Ifound some of the information, but not all. I simply wrote the dates on the paper and gave it to him. HE JUST STOOD THERE AND WOULDN'T MOVE. I FINALLY REMINDED HIM THAT HE SAID HE HAD TO USE THE RESTROOM. He asked for directions once again.

He returned. 5 minutes after he left. When I saw him walking toward me, I said, "If you don't have a real reference question, don't come over here because I don't want to be bothered with mess!" He said, " I do have a real reference question. Why did the tree fall in the white house lawn the other day?" I told him that I didn't know and he proceeded to tell me that I did. I finally said, " No, I don't and quit playing. I told you not to come over her with some mess." He says, "The tree fell because you can't have rain for days and not expect a tree to fall because the soil with give." I told him that isn't true because it doesn't always happen. Why didn't I just let him talk and not respond to anything? My dad has been dead for two years, so sometimes it slips my mind that a drunk is the last person you want to have a conversation with. No matter what, they have to have the last word and they are always right.

FINALLY, I just kept repeating myself. I was telling him to leave the reference desk because he didn't have any reference questions. THEN, he asked me to have dinner with him. (Why oh why must I receive attention from the WRONG type of man?) I told him "NO. " He proceeded to tell me that he is a nice guy. He asked me to check the balance on his new platinum visa card. I told him that he needed to do that for himself. He asked me again to go out with him, and I told him no. He then said, "On yeah, it's because my breath stinks." I told him no, "It's because I am not interested in you!" He still didn't leave. I kept telling him to leave and he finally did.

My co-worker had been on and off the telephone during this whole transaction. When it was finally over, he got off the telephone and asked me what that was all about. I told him that I had just been harrassed and he did nothing about it. He laughed. I didn't think anything was funny, and I told him so.

In the mandatory sexual harrassment workshop, they announced that there is nothing management can do about librarians who get harrassed by patrons. The only time something can be done is when it is the same patron all the time. THAT MADE ME MAD!!! I get harrassed almost every week and it is never the same person. Sometimes, the same person does it more than once but never in the same week.