Pulled from Crimes of Fiction

[nina_vendredi]

We got the fish from The Boy’s’ dad. He was moving, and let us raid the den of his unwanted furniture. We took the sectional couch, a Queen-sized bed, an above ground pool, and two fish tanks, a small one, to be used for cleaning, and a large, rather dirty one, complete with fish.

We put the Large tank in the window of the dining room, and then watched as the fish began to die. Those that lived we called Darwin’s finest fish.

When we moved from the house on State, we gave the small tank to the Music/Dance Library along with the fish, and put the large tank in the storage space we rented from Daegan’s parents. When we left Athens, first The Boy, then Kat and myself, for California, we decided to gift the Library with the large tank as well, in order to add more things to storage.

The Library, a more wretched hive of scum and villainy… I had worked there for most of seven years, Kat for two. And there were many adventures.

The Head Librarian, was a third degree black-belt in Tai Kwon Do, her religion was determined by the church paying her to play organ for them (She had a PhD in Organ Performance), she had nine cats, was missing a toe, her father worked for the GOVERNMENT, and she had once played the bass drum for a bagpipe band in Florida.

The Assistant Librarian, was a tall, wild haired, quiet man, with his masters in the Saxophone, and a tendency to wear Soviet Army surplus.

His wife, who was the Night Librarian, had quit her job as an Elementary music teacher, and believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible.

And then we left our homes, jobs, and friends to Journey West.


This is what happened at the Library.

The actual e-mail telling the story, with names changed to protect the um...innocent
Ah, where to begin. Actually, it's all your fault. And Kat’s, and The Boy’s, and, of course, George W. Bush's. A Janitor is also involved.
This story begins with your old fish. We still have the fish. Well, not your original fish, who are all deceased, but we still have creatures inhabiting the aquarium y'all left with us, most notably an albino frog. But I digress.

Anywhoo, once H had embraced the fish and become enthusiastic about the idea, we soon branched out into other critters. Two fiddler crabs took up residence on the circ desk. They were eventually named Frank & Hot Lips by longtime library regular Micah. They were not too long for this world, however- although we were told that ours were actually very long-lived for crabs. Again I digress; suffice it to say that the little scuttlers scuttled off this mortal coil and left a void in their tank and in our hearts.

To fill these dual voids, Holly acquired a young green iguana whom she initially named "Boy George, the Karma Chameleon," even though she is not a chameleon, nor, as would later be revealed, a boy. 'Course Boy George isn't exactly masculine, but once more, I digress.

George was immediately a huge hit with the library patrons. She could often be found out amongst the masses, sitting on heads or shoulders & being hand fed many times a day. She made no noise and generated no stench. She would go outside for walks on a little lizard leash.

George's rapid growth rate soon demanded that a larger holding facility be procured. H paid >$400 out of her pocket to have the large display case converted to a habitat for the much-loved critter. And all was well. George's new digs were very impressive.

So much for your role in this sordid matter; now let's talk about Dubya.

As you may know, H's political tendencies lean just a smidge to the left; she is quite a staunch democrat and feels that all republicans must be morons. (I, on the other hand, know better; they're certainly not morons. They're evil, power-hungry busybodies who are primarily interested in increasing their net worth/military sphere of influence-- but, again, I digress.) H often finds silly looking pictures of Herr Bush on das internet, and had taken to printing a few of the more interesting ones and leaving them at the circ desk for library patrons to add their own original captions. This was good fun and spawned much creative effort. Evidently, however, such diversions are not welcome at large fatherland, er, state institutions. One facsimile of Shrub's visage ended up with a Hitler-esque mustache and haircut inked over the original grooming. (The resemblance really was stunning. What was it that happened to Adolf's body again?)

At this juncture, someone, who was is and shall be nameless ('cause I don't know the cowardly pigfucker's name) complained. And when s/he/it complained, the Bushie stuff was just one part of the package. The lizard was another (it's soooo scary). Also, H was too scary to talk to and the remainder of the library staff, which would be C and myself, were just somehow unapproachable. (Do I really strike people as intimidating and unapproachable? Very busy of late, certainly, but I am as amicable a guy as you'll find on the sentient side of a vegetative state, and C is notoriously bubbly and nice to people in general.) WTF! Finally, there was loud rock n' roll music being played in the evenings, the source of which, if this moron had half a brain, could easily have been fixed as the janitor's closet. That's right, genius here wasn't even close enough to the situation to realize that there was in fact NO MUSIC emanating from the music library, which is probably the most music-less place in the building.

The anonymous complainant came not to H(too scary), not to C or myself (unapproachable), but instead to Merle, director of the School of Music (now housed in 'Robert Glidden Hall' if you can believe that excrement-- that's right, the music building has a name, now). The complainant, you see, is music faculty. Or so we've been told.

Okay, so the yellow bastard didn't want to come to Holly in person. Cowardly, but fine. Merle will now do the stand-up thing and see what's really up, right? She'll come up here and check it out, right?

Not on your life. She's also 'scared of H' and never sets foot in the library. She does not investigate; she does not speak with any of us. She goes straight to Alden administration to complain to Julia, dean of libraries, bypassing even H's immediate boss, Nancy. Well, Merle can't get an audience with Mrs. Z (that's right, 'Mrs.'; Julia has only a master's degree) for some reason or other and instead speaks to Gary (assistant dean). Now, Gary and H have an illustrious 17-year history of mutual strife and hatred, and now Gary has some ammunition dropped right into his lap. He took it to Julia and who knows exactly what he said.

And a fell meeting is set.



Now, where were we? Oh, yes, the meeting.

H is cordially required to attend a meeting with Julia and Gary (Merle and the anonymous complainant are NOT present). H was not told in advance of the subject of the meeting, and so was blind-sided with all of the aforementioned bull-puckey. She was summarily ordered to remove the lizard, squelch the loud rock 'n roll, and to cease displaying all pictures, cartoons, etc. in the public space. Now, anyone would be mightily peeved by being so accosted; and H, well, you know H. Let's just say that the situation escalated.

Somewhere not long after this point, H had a small stroke. It happened around 9:30 or so in the morning; Mrs. Remonko went in to speak to H and came back out to tell me that H was not well. She asked me to close her door and let her just rest for a few minutes, so I did, but later went in and convinced her to let me take her to the emergency room. She was dizzy to the point of not being able to stand and also vomited several times on the way. She spent a couple of days in O'Blenness but has fully recovered and is doing very well at this time.

Anyway, we had removed likenesses or Herr Bush and began planning the lizard's removal, but it was quite some time before George actually had to send out change-of-address notices. We also began actually enforcing things like fines for music professors. A chain went up to prevent easy ingress to the area behind the circulation desk. H publicly declared an end to profs being allowed to remove reference and special collections materials from the library and banned the Wetzel reserve table. If they want a traditional, quiet, anal retentive library than by God, they get the baggage that goes with it- STRICT LIBRARIANS
AND MUCH LESS FLEXIBLE POLICIES!

Dick Wetzel was extremely nonplussed at being told he couldn't have a table anymore. He actually engaged Holly in a shouting contest, the end of which I was privileged to hear: "if you want a pissing match, you've got one!" I await with some anticipation the conclusion of the contest. I'll pick Wetzel for pissing distance, naturally, since he's penis-positive (and his name *is* DICK, after all), but I think H wins hands-down for both quantity and quality. Dick's just out of his league in those regards.

Julia was also in the 'nonplussed' category and ordered H to immediately rescind all of her 'new' policies (which were really just pretty much the way they do things at Alden, anyway). C and H constructed an email to go out to the music faculty based on advice from a lady at the office of institutional equity (they've been H's advocates in this ordeal; H went there instead of to the ombudsman's office on the advice of Dora Wilson). Something like these policies are 'under review', blah, blah, blah. BTW, we've since learned that this office is also handling issues between Julia and at least one other library staffer.

Anyway, Julia was not satisfied and told Holly as much. She initiated the procedure to fire Holly, turning the matter in to the Human Resources department. Their purpose is to investigate and see of grounds for dismissal exist.

So we have this meeting at Human Resources. I'm there to be Holly's 'calming influence', as she puts it. HR allows me to attend as an "advisor", but I am not permitted to speak on Holly's behalf. I may make a statement at the end of the proceedings if I desire. Julia is also there.

A rather grandmotherly lady presides at this meeting (and I mean 'grandmotherly' in a "Flowers in the Attic" way rather than anything like a "Waltons" sort of grandmother) and emphasizes from the get go that H may be terminated at the discretion of Julia without any real reason, but they usually don't like to do it that way.

So Julia speaks first, then H, then Julia, then H, then Julia, then
H. I get a chance to speak at the end but don't say much, as usual. H apologizes and becomes more deferential than I would have thought possible, had I not witnessed it with my own eyes. Of course I'm sure this is what Julia (may the fleas of a thousand camels take up residence in her bung hole) was looking for all along.

H maintains her calm admirably well throughout, and I'm very proud of her for that. It took some guts for her to swallow her pride. Oh, and a generous dose of Xanex. I don't think she could have gotten excited if the building were on fire.

So, H's not going to be fired this time. We're waiting to see what sort of punishment comes down from on high-- could be a suspension without pay, or maybe just a letter of reprimand.

Anyway, there's the Cliff's notes version. Any questions? Let me know what you think-- is this a cohesive narrative? I'm up way past my bedtime and I'm sure I've left many juicy details out but this should get you up to speed on the key points at least. Feel free to share this with Kat or any other Music/Dance alums you may be in contact with; none of this is any big secret.

So this has been my life lately. What's up with you?