We're taking a bit of a breather while the world rearranges its underpants. Meanwhile, the other blog is here.

Monday, October 03, 2005

Characters of our time

You'll think I'm making this guy up. It might help if you bear in mind that he was employed at a time when our lead officer thought it appropriate to ask interviewees whether they were likely to "fall pregnant" in the first two years of the job...

Harry Vaseline, one of our branch librarians, is a lovely guy, just a bit idiosyncratic. On my first day in the job I was introduced to him and told slightly later: "he has his own way of doing things, but that's just him. He was gassed as a child." It took me a long time to realise that he was the wrong age for this to have happened in any international conflict.

The most disruptive, but least alarming, of his habits is to go and disappear in the toilet for hours, literally, on end. Possibly because of his medical condition, but nobody's sure. He's built himself an outside lavatory at home. Every so often we get a 'phone call from his house mate first thing to say that "Harry's gone to the bottom of the garden so you may as well start without him."

His really alarming habit is to stand on his head behind the counter and explain at length about his lack of sex life. That goes down well with the punters.

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