The Man with Dirty Hands

A man with dirty hands patronizes my library and checks out every book I want to read before I get to it. How do I know it's a man, you ask. Here is my indisputable proof: I opened up my library book and a large, flattened spider slid out onto my shirt. Only a man would do that. Sorry guys, but I have brothers, a husband--and my father once slammed a roach in a missalette at church and put it back in the holder. My dad and I laughed for the rest of service, we kept thinking about the next person who'd open that book. But I digress.

This man, this library patron, has pizza thumbs and mustard fingers and is bleeding. I know this because of the stains he leaves behind. Also, he picks his nose. He reads literary fiction, but he enjoys children's literature as well. I used to think maybe he was a professor, until the books I checked out started showing up with greasy thumbprints along the sides of the pages, as if he'd leafed through the books many times. Now I think he's a self-educated mechanic. Or a writer who reads while eating, bleeding and picking his nose after changing his toner cartridge.

6 comments:

Brenda said...

Danette...

I think this fella must be a traveling library patron...I'm sure I have seen the grease, blood, and mustard on the library books I have picked up after him...

Thankfully, he has not had to pick his nose at my library as of yet...or maybe I just have not been so unfortunate as to find one of his...umm...talents... grin...

We need to out a warrant poster and catch him before he ruins all the libraries in the world...grin..

Anonymous said...

I'd laugh if I wasn't gagging!

Danette

Danette Haworth said...

Lilfix,
Yes, you are lucky to have not yet found the results of his picking. Sometimes the result is enough to blot out an entire word! Gross!

We'll put the poster out, and the library police can run the DNA gathered from all books.


Danette,
Believe me, I have gagged upon discovery of the detritus. I couldn't handle it one time and returned the book without finishing it.

Linda D. (sbk) said...

I think that guy's been to our library, too!!

I'm so glad I'm going to the book store today. Ah, the smell of a fresh, new book...

Danette Haworth said...

Well-read, and well-traveled--who is this guy?

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh!! Aggh! A spider?! I would be scarred for life. I am trying and failing to picture this man, though. I guess my brain can't piece together that much dirty!