What are YOU going to DO about it?

So yesterday evening...two of us librarians (okay i have been struggling and struggling with this clause and have yet to find the correct-sounding {as i'm sure you've noticed i rarely pay attention to Actual rules} so you just have to put up with the preceding) were listening to a third of our tribe members describe the very serious medical condition of her five-year-old granddaughter and this librarian's upcoming visit to said granddaughter in hospital, when we were very Rudely and Loudly interrupted by Mrs. Very Outraged Patron waving the City Weekly (our community's independent free weekly newspaper) at us and complaining stridently about the fact that there was a large pile of them displayed prominently in our lobby.

Yes, as a matter of fact, there were, as often there are, they seem to appear there weekly, oddly enough. (isn't that interesting how coincidentally it coincides with the title?)

So, she throws the newspaper on the desk in front of us, telling us how VERY OBJECTIONABLE the cover picture (Eve, i believe) is.

We remain silent.

She does not.

Luckily, she asks if the manager is here.

We all turn to the computer area where our manager is looking at us (i'm sure, trying to pretend that he is invisible, deaf, blind, or in any other way, not responsible for, what he knows is coming).

One of us quickly offers to go relieve him of his current patron so that he may deal with her objection (while we are each silently cataloging the Countless Number of MUCH MORE OBJECTIONABLE material we could show her on the spot, but, oh well...)

So Mr. Highly Capable Boss Man comes over and she throws her little temper tantrum and then demands to know

"What Is He GOING TO DO ABOUT IT?"

Mr H.C. Boss Man takes a thoughtful pause, then says "Well, probably not remove it."

Well, Mrs V. Outraged Patron does not take too kindly to this particular answer and, after a bit more of a temper tantrum (informing him that WE have standards and that we would not allow this type of thing to be viewed on the Internet [apparently she is operating under the grave delusion that our filters would disallow this image~though we don't allow even adults to view porn on our public Internet computers this doesn't qualify as porn~what exactly does offend her? well, the belly-button {oh my} is showing as my mother pointed out~i fear for HER children~we found much worse to cause offense with a high filter on]) and some additional huffing and puffing and stomping about, she demands to know his name.

He points to his name tag, and tells her what it says, just in case.

Then she asks/realizes "Free paper? Right?"

Right. (you can see where this is going)

Mrs. V.O. Patron storms at our circ clerks, storms "Ms. Previous Manager would have done something!" grabs the entire stack of papers, and storms out.

by the by~i phoned Ms Previous Manager at her new library to tell her the tale (which she found quite entertaining), and to ask her what She WOULD do.

She said, "tell her there would be another issue out next week."

so there you go...