What is This, General Hospital? Barb’s Stuff 2

Robin Rose Yuran gifts us with“MORE STUFF BARB DON’T WANT
Today’s installment:
WHAT IS THIS, GENERAL HOSPITAL?

Can wastebaskets fly? You bet they can. Especially when the patron by the Xerox machine groans, slumps to a chair and declares, “I’m going to throw up.� There’s nothing quite like seeing a complete stranger barf in the library. When my daughter was young, she coined the terrific onomatopoeic phrase “beelat� for vomit. Yup, that was pretty accurate for the sound effects of yesterday’s unpleasantness. It sort of put me off my elevensies. Remember folks, the medical stuff all happens on my shift. So far in my career I’ve had plenty of pause for alarm:

Robin Rose Yuran gifts us with“MORE STUFF BARB DON’T WANT
Today’s installment:
WHAT IS THIS, GENERAL HOSPITAL?

Can wastebaskets fly? You bet they can. Especially when the patron by the Xerox machine groans, slumps to a chair and declares, “I’m going to throw up.� There’s nothing quite like seeing a complete stranger barf in the library. When my daughter was young, she coined the terrific onomatopoeic phrase “beelat� for vomit. Yup, that was pretty accurate for the sound effects of yesterday’s unpleasantness. It sort of put me off my elevensies. Remember folks, the medical stuff all happens on my shift. So far in my career I’ve had plenty of pause for alarm:
  Once, a patron tried to commit suicide by taking a lot of pills in a far-off stack and “falling asleep.â€? A fellow librarian happened to mention Mr. So and So had been acting strangely. Well, one would pretty much have to, trying to choke down roughly 200 capsules, (surprising he didn’t beelat) before deciding to take a final nap; that pretty much red-flagged me and saved his sorry ass. What bothered me the most, besides the obvious, was that later on he told me that he wanted to be found reading a good book- sure enough, I recalled his glasses had been neatly folded on top of a blue-bound copy of Plato’s Republic. I found this sadly contrived. I told a trustee who remarked, “Newsflash! Plato’s Republic is not a good book.â€?

                          Last year, a patron suffered cardiac arrest right next to the circ desk and dropped like a tree. I didn’t know a human being could turn that blue that fast. Neither did I know CPR, so I tossed the phone to an intern, told him to call 911, and turned into The Shouter. The medic who arrived first on the scene recalls that I kept shouting over and over again “Live, damn it!â€? I guess it was the only strategy I could muster- raging against the dying of the light. I suggested that perhaps the ambulance crew could institute a new position, you know, after the defibrillator fails, as a last resort- “Call in The Shouter!â€? Ever since the incident, I make sure to wear a nice bra, just in case it happens to me- after seeing the medics just yank that shirt up, in front of the whole world, I’ve decided to err on the side of caution. I joke with the vic now, he’s fine- I do a sign of the cross motion and say, “No dying on my shift!â€?

    Non-life threatening, but just as disturbing, a five-year-old kid once pulled his pants down, squatted and took a large dump in bio. It was pretty much a STUFF BARB DON’T WANT moment and phrase of our lives- for the longest time afterwards, I could always crack up a colleague by saying at random- “Well, I think I’ll go take a crap in bio now.â€?

                            One time I had a peculiar patron who was convinced that her husband, a prominent citizen of the community, was trying to kill her. I have to say that at first I thought it might be true but after a while, decided not. She would come in to the library, I’d be trapped behind the circ desk, and she would regale me with his latest attempt- my personal favorite was the Pez dispenser on the stairs. This went on for several years and finally one day I asked her if she was bored with the whole thing- I was. I told her that something was troubling me; if he was trying to kill her, what was taking him so long? She didn’t come back much after that.”