12.11.03

There is a man who comes to our library who is, shall we just say, a character. He has been a problematic customer in the past because he used to insist on using our staff phones to call his answering machine to check his messages. It got so bad that he would just walk up to the phone and use it without even asking. Although this problem has been solved, he has since found another way to harass our librarians. Today I came into work and found out from Laura that he’s been pestering Courtney for the past few weeks with a question which they thought had to do with “making adult toys for veterans out of household materials”. This obviously seemed like an odd question to Laura but being the wonderful library she is, she didn’t ask questions and proceeded to help Courtney find some information on the internet. Well, they weren’t able to find much. Come to find out, further into the discussion Laura finds out that what he really wants is information on how to make “adult toys for the bedroom out of household materials, in particular prescription pill bottles”. Apparently he pronounced “bedroom” in such a way that made it sound like “veterans”. I realize that as librarians we’re supposed uphold the principles and ideals presented in the Intellectual Freedom Handbook, bla, bla, bla. Believe me, I understand this and I support those principles with everything that I am, and keep them in mind whenever I’m helping a customer. But this is just bizaar. He came back tonight and pestered Jennifer with the same question. Jenn was very tactful in her response and told him that she wasn’t exactly familiar with that particular genre but she would see what she could do. Jenn commented later that she was very curious as to his choice of “household” materials and didn’t quite understand the “physics” when it came to the whole perscription pill bottle thing. Obviously, this is conjuring up images that could make anyone ill with disgust. I mean, I’m no prude but that is just disgusting and I don’t think we should have to be subjected to this mans “unusual hobbies” even if he did read in Men’s Health that sex and masterbation contributes to a long and healthy life. I really feel like this is harassment. As a professional, where can we draw the line?