One Million Dollars

Oh.My.God.

*sigh* It's been awhile since I've written any library blogs, I suppose because I didn't have any material - until today.

Let me backpedal a bit and tell you about one of our regulars. He's a big, tall guy, 20s, who used to come in to use the internet - let's call him Coltrane. I never thought much about him, but in the last few months he's been wandering, talking to himself or anyone who will listen. I think he's schizophrenic, but I don't have any proof, just a comparison in behavior to other people I've known. Anyways, Coltrane's always been harmless - example: I was telling a patron about Midsummer and my role in it, when he walked by and overheard me say something about being queen of the fairies. Well he just giggled when he heard that, and on my way into work the next morning, shouted "Hey Fairy Queen!".

Well today I was shelving, and he came up to me and asked me if I liked my job, and asked my favorite book. I couldn't think of anything, so he asked me what I would buy if I had a million dollars. I told him I didn't know, hoping he'd go away, but I should've known better. Instead, he kept throwing things out until I finally said a house in London. Then he starts telling me about his castle, and I can come visit it, and it's the biggest one there (except for Harry and Will's), except he has to wait for his grandma to die before he can give me the money.

He kept coming up to me saying things like that. Then, I was at reference and he came up and said that he had been sitting on his couch, thinking about going to the bank, and getting a million dollars and giving it to me, but he didn't. Oh- but he would if I wanted him to, and did I want him to do that? He said he'd give it to me so I wouldn't have to work here anymore, and I said that was nice, and a million would go a long way. He said "Alright, but you have to make love to me first - remember that." Oh. My. God. That totally crossed the line from harmless to a little weird/scary.
He then came back and said "I've been watching you ever since I moved here, when I would come to get online (he obviously still comes in to get online), but I couldn't ever do anything because of the police". I'm a little curious as to how this day is different from all the other days he didn't say anything. These snippets of what you could call a conversation happened over about an hour between his wandering back and forth. He came back again after that, and started towards one of the chairs, and said he was going to sit there while I thought about whether I wanted the million dollars. (I had already told him no at this point). I said ok, but he'd have to be quiet. That lasted for about 20 seconds, and then he left again.

The other gem from this morning was a woman wanting to come in to complain. She had checked out a book (a recently published book too) that had addresses for publishers. She sent some manuscripts to Jacksonville, and it had been three months and she hadn't heard anything back. She asked the post office, and obviously they couldn't tell her anything, so she came to us. Some phone # she had gotten didn't work, and the operator couldn't give her a number. Maybe your manuscripts sucked, and they didn't bother to contact you. OR maybe they haven't had the time to read it. She ended up convincing herself that someone had put up a fake address just to steal people's work.