They wanted everything but sanity

Todd Frei

1.

"It's a matter of national security."

The italics were her emphasis. And yes she was serious, completely serious. Oh, and she was also mad. Clenched red furious. The matter of national security was an e-mail attachment that wasn't being sent. The reason she was mad? The fact that the library's courtesy phone didn't allow calls to 800 numbers or incoming calls.

"What if it were a medical emergency? You mean I couldn't get a call back?"

"Is this a medical emergency?" You may not sense the subtleties of sarcasm in my question, but they were there. Because of course it wasn't a medical emergency. She had already been shaking in her furies for the last hour back and forth from reference desk to computer because she didn't think her e-mail was going through and the only way to contact this highly important person at NASA was an 800 number.

In this same vain things would go on. She would talk to the highest ranking Librarian currently working which was Lisa who in between confrontations would type messages to me in the address bar of Firefox telling how crazy this woman was. This was the way she would tell me things she didn't want anybody to hear. She would tap my shoulder then start typing in the address bar "Man at computer 15 smells so bad could barely stand next to him." Or "Guy in hoodie is 35 and follows young girls around stacks. Keep an eye on him."

But interlibrary communication is not my purpose here. No my purpose is this patron. Soon she took to the argument of authority. By this I mean she started throwing around names. She said first thing in the morning she was going to call Bruce Thomson, the library system director, about this outrage. Then she was going to go to Mike Coltrane the county commissioner because tax dollars are going to fund a library that would allow such an atrocity. The point was to show us that yes she was an intimate acquaintance of many high ranking officials in our county government.

Then, she looked straight in my eyes, and with a degree of seriousness you find only in the truly enraged, said she was going to contact the White House. (Mr. President, I just wanted to let you know that the courtesy phone in the Stanford Public Library doesn't allow incoming calls, or calls to 800 numbers. And I was trying to call NASA.)

"Is she standing right there?"

"Yes."

"So, then you've met this woman?"

"Yea."

"Yea." (Insert sigh)

That was the extent of the conversation. No resolution was reached other than she didn't end up calling the White House, and it seems our nation was safe for a bit longer. Because by this time it was after 9, and we were closed.

This would be the first encounter with Ellen Shoney. It later came to be referred to as the Ellen Shoney affair (we were all nerds trying to make clever pop culture references in everything).

...next...