Restraining Our Craving

Carol called me into the office.

"Sometimes Jorel is so clueless I just want to punch her in the fucking face."

I nodded. "That's work for a lot of us: restraining our craving to punch faces."

Carol shook her head. She was mad that Jorel wasn't doing anything about the Endowed Chair. The Endowed Chair, aka Dr. Sabotage, was a customer who complained non-stop about a (possibly) homeless lady who snoozed in a corner all day. He wrote emails to the mayor, the city council, the Catholic Decency League and anyone else who would listen to his pompous garbage. He wanted something to be done about this woman who was using the public library as her living quarters--eating a buffet of meats and mustards, bathing in the unisex restroom, and drinking hootch and snoring--when the library was a LEARNING INSTITUTION etc etc. We asked him to please tell us when the homeless lady was drinking or douching herself, but he refused to complain in person, preferring to write windy emails to those higher up. Carol was getting sick of it. The doctor's complaints were giving downtown the idea that we were slackety-slackin' around in outer slack space.

"I put Jorel up there to keep an eye on things, and what do I see her doing? She's researching her family tree! She has NO IDEA what's going on! So why even put her up there?"

I sighed. "Civil War horses don't just research themselves...."

"And now his latest email threatens to call the chief of police. He was sitting up there, drily amused as we quote put on a dog-and-pony show for him. What an asshole."

Dr Sabotage has his own website where he proclaims himself an Endowed Chair for the Edwin James Society. He's working on ecological micro-habitats and making the world a better place by cleaning up the planet, one homeless person at a time.

"What are we going to do about this guy?"

"I don't know. At least we're not sitting in jail right now like Joan Hinkmeyer."

She was our 78-year-old substitute librarian. She had recently run over a 4-year-old boy and killed him. For good measure, she ran over a blind girl too. She claimed that she couldn't see the children--who were on their way to the library--because of sun glare. The judge gave her a day in jail, along with a stern talking to about not doing that sort of thing.

"God," Carol said, shaking her head. "I can't imagine living with that. And to be her age too, sitting in jail!"

"Do you think she's getting THUG LIFE tattooed on her chest? Or maybe LOVE and HATE on her knuckles...?"

Carol looked at me.

"Okay, okay. Don't punch me in the face!"


I'm off to Mexico, everyone! Let Montezuma do his worst! Or his best! WHO CARES