My morning's entertainment

After swimming this morning, I went to the downtown library to work a shift in the library book store. Usually it’s pretty boring and I get a lot of reading done. It’s a bit weird as I sit there reading my Kindle, but….

Today there was a floor show. From where I sit, I can see all the traffic at the main circulation desk. My attention was drawn to a loud voice. A woman was complaining to the employee at the desk about the fact that, although she had a Chattanooga mailing address, she was being charged for her library card.

Note: The City of Chattanooga has recently taken full control of and responsibility for the public library. It’s free only for people who live within the city limits. There are people who have a Chattanooga mailing address who do not live in the city limits. With payment of an annual fee, nonresidents can use the library.

This lady, from her address, obviously did not live within the city limits, but she was adamant that because her mailing address was “Chattanooga”, she should have a free card. She got louder and louder, and eventually demanded to see some “higher-up” in the library, somebody who “sat upstairs at a desk”.

Within a few minutes, the new director of the library came downstairs to deal with this woman. The director is a fairly young woman who has been on the job for less than six months. The woman went through her story again, still quite loudly. The director responded in a very quiet voice - I couldn’t even hear what she said, even though I knew what she had to be saying.

The angry woman went on about how her family had lived in Chattanooga forever; had been on the banks of the river giving corn to the settlers when they showed up. And then she went on to say that her ancestors had all had dark hair - that none of them were blond. What???? Well, the director is a quite attractive, white woman, who happens to be blond. I hate to think how the conversation would’ve gone if our director had been black - but I digress.

Finally, the director managed to defuse the situation, and the woman got her fee refunded, which I guess is what she was after in the first place. And things quieted back down to normal.

The new director made some big points with me, and her employees, and certainly earned her keep today. I got an entertainment bonus of watching a well-dressed woman make an ass out of herself. And I even finished my book.

Be sure to read Drift, Rachel Maddow’s new book.