We used to have a patron that we called "patron from hell". She was a community member and was slightly "off". She came in one time wearing flip flops and would loudly click them as she progressed toward the reference desk. (If you wanted to ignore her, you couldn't because of the "flop, flop, flop...") She would wear tight thin shorts so all the dimples would show, sometimes with a tube top and a shear blouse over it. Her hair was piled up high in a boufant, with a net scarf tied around it and a plastic flower in the middle. She would always wear powder blue eye shadow and take it to the corner of her face (almost to her ears), then draw in a blue widows peak coming down from her hairline to the tops of her eyebrows. With her lips decked out in candy red lipstick, she would ask an incredulous, detailed question from the reference librarian on duty, requiring them to go to much ordeal to look up information, show her where the materials were located, how to use the copiers and copy card machine, etc. After a librarian would spend an hour or so of their time assisting her and finally come up with the answer to her question, she would say something like: "Yes, that's exactly what they told me here last night." She would ask the same question of different reference librarians until she was confident that she was being given the correct information! I haven't seen her in awhile, so I guess she's bugging someone else.

Our current patron from hell is a racist older woman who thinks all the black males that work here are simply too "aggressive". The first time she told me that my hourly employee was aggressive, I almost laughed in her face. He was one of the best, most polite and genteel students I had working for me. She also has problems with our night guard, who is a black male. We require everyone to show their bags as they leave and she was offended by his insistence to look in her backpack/purse (which is his job). Even after we explained the policies, she still insists that he is aggressive. We told her to not come to the library during the time he is working, and when she does, our guard just ignores her. She doesn't like that either. She was having our Circulation desk night supervisor "escort" her out the door, so she would not be "harrassed". But our night supervisor quit and our new night supervisor is a black female. I can't wait to hear what our patron from hell has to say about that! She (the patron), also has not been introduced to our head of public services who is also a black female. She has managed to gripe to everyone else, and while they listen at first, it doesn't take long to realize her slant on the situation. The director of the library has begun talking to the chancellor's office to see how we can have this woman barred from the library. She isn't actually a regular student, but a community member auditing classes through a senior citizen program.

Well, that's two that I could think of right off. Did I send you the story of the "tie man" last year? He was a stalker that liked to look at women through the stacks. We called him tie man because he always wore a dress shirt with a tie.