Tales From the Dungeon, Part I

Well gather round, my precious little pets, it's story time again. Today Daddy Overlord is going to tell you all about some of the wonderfully wacky characters that have graced our library over the years.

This weekend I was sitting at the desk talking to Lord Evilton, ruler of the Loss Prevention Desk, since we were both stuck on Sunday morning desk duty because of finals. We had whiled away the morning checking out study/torture rooms to the plebeian masses when an odd thing happened.

One young lady walked in the entrance door, then immediately turned and walked back out the exit door right next to her. Normally, this would not be cause for comment, especially in a place as strange as The Dungeon, but upon exiting our fine establishment, she immediately turned and walked back in again, followed by another immediate exit. Then she simply walked off. down the walkway.

Naturally, I commented to Lord Evilton on the strange behavior, which lead to a long discussion about some of the many weird and wacky people that have come to the library over the years, the highlights of which I will now share with you. Bear in mind that I was not present for many of these, and some of them were long before my time and probably exaggerated over the years, but this is how the stories were told to me. As a great storyteller once said, "Trust the story, not the storyteller."

We'll begin with Johnny Wombat. This is the only one of our Rogues gallery I've had direct experience with. I call him Johnny Wombat because he looks a lot like a character by that name from the Preacher comic book series. If you look closely at the picture on the wikipedia page I linked to, he's the character with the bushy beard directly underneath the "ch" in "Preacher".

Johnny likes to come in in the evenings and weekends. I believe he's a retired professor here at Overlord University (Go, Fighting Things-That-Should-Not-Be-Named!). His MO is to come up to the desk under the pretense of asking for help or checking out an item, thus cornering his hapless prey before moving in for the kill by ceaselessly talking to them about Global Warming. Seriously. He's obsessed with it. He will literally stand at the desk, long after his issue has been resolved, and continue expounding on the problem and it's long and short term consequences, completely oblivious to any line of customers that might be forming behind him as he rambles. At least twice he's caught me, although I have since learned to deflect him off onto one of my more disposable minions so I can get back to other patrons. I personally have been trapped for over forty minutes. I've seen one poor minion sitting and literally falling asleep as he was being lectured for more than an hour. The worst thing is how he always steers everything onto the topic of global warming, no matter what you do.

*stamps book with due date*
"Here you go sir, they're due back in two weeks"
"You know, you shouldn't use paper stamp pads in the back of the books, because cutting down trees for paper can lead to an increase in global..."
"Hold that thought, sir."
*turns around*
"Minion!!!!"

Next up on our hit parade is the fruit man. This was apparently a guy who would come up to the desk every weekend with a large basket of fruit. And I don't mean like a fruit basket. I mean like a large woven wicker platter. Filled with apples, oranges, bananas, whatever. He would then leave the basket at the front counter with specific instructions not to let anyone touch any of it, under pain of death. He would then head up to the stacks and come down every fifteen minutes or so to grab a piece of fruit and head back up. And he would do this aaaaaaall day.

Well, at least he was getting his recommended daily allowances.

Finally, our last tale for today involves the mysterious Crazy-Asian-Bag-Lady, as Lord Evilton described her. Apparently, for a long while, before my time, a mysterious oriental woman dressed in dirty old clothes and carrying a bag would show up every once in a while right before closing. Before anyone could say or do anything, she would dart up the stairs of the building and disappear into the stacks of books.

Let me explain something about the dungeon really quickly. It is five stories tall, with dozens of collections and thousands of bookshelves containing tens of millions of books. There are also literally hundreds of study rooms, as well as many offices, supply rooms, bathrooms, corridors, break rooms, and study spaces. It's a veritable labyrinth.

Anyway, the night security guard would always chase behind her, trying to get her to stop, but he would always lose sight of her within a floor or two and no one would see her again. No one ever figured out where she was staying. No one ever figured out how she got out the next morning. No one ever even saw a trace of her except when she darted in at night and immediately disappeared.

Anyway, that's all the time we have for Story time today. There's always strange goings on around here', though, so I'm sure there will be many more to come. Until then, night night, and don't let the giant vampiric were-bedbugs bite.