Monday, June 27, 2005

A New York Story

I swear that I am not making this up.

So the other day I took my laptop to the Brooklyn Public Library, the central branch on Grand Army. I wanted to find out if they were WiFi and where the hot spots are, so I stood in line at the Information Desk. In front of me was a young Hassidic Jewish guy. Beard, curls, Tallis, the whole shebang. I walked up in the middle of his conversation with the woman behind the desk but it is clear he has been bugging her so that she is nearly at the breaking point.

"I just want to know if you have them."

"You'll need to go to the Audio Visual Room on the Second Floor."

"Where on the shelves are they?"

"First you need to see if we own them. I don't know. If we don't own them it won't do you any good to look on the shelves."

"You can't look that up for me here?"

"There are several of them, which one were you interested in?"

"Number three."

"Number Three we don't have."

"Number four."

"Number four is missing."

"Missing?"

"It's missing."

"Number five."

"Number five we don't have."

"Number ..."

"We don't have number six and we don't have number seven."

"Only number four?"

"Number four is missing. We own number two, but it is not at this branch. I can put a hold on it and have it sent to your local branch. Which is your local library?"

"Here, here."

"Okay, I'll put a hold on it and you will receive a call when Police Academy 2 is in."

5 comments:

Cupcake said...

I'm fascinated ... are you a Hassid with a penchant for the Police Academy oeuvre or a poor, put-upon library worker?

Susan said...

So funny!

Anonymous said...

That is the single coolest story I've read in a very long time ...

Anonymous said...

Although it is only 9:02am, I can say that this is probably the funniest thing I will read all day. And most interesting.

Cupcake said...

I've got to eavesdrop on the Hassids more often. They're a Gold Mine, I tell you.