Leaside Leanings

Well, it's been a year since I ended an 8 month stint at Leaside Branch. For those of you who don't know, Leaside library is located in a somewhat affluent part of the city around Bayview and Eglinton. The houses are expensive but not especially huge and the people are well-off but still have to walk their own dogs (if not push their own baby carriages). But more noticeable than any sniffings of upper-middle class wealth, is the entrenched sense of a priviledged community. And enclosed. As I stepped out of my car or off the bus and onto the ground that is Leaside, I almost could hear the hoary whispers in the air "Outsider". Or maybe, "Oh a Filipino. Shouldn't you be looking after my kids?"

I was warned by staff. Hell, I was warned by my dental hygenist! "You're going to Leaside?" she asked as she picked out the previous night's baklava from my bicuspids, "Aren't they kind of, you know, snobby?"

Coming from Flemingdon Park, it was like taking the five o'clock flying house from Kansas and falling into Oz...except I missed landing on the witch.

Now for the most part, like any other branch, it was uneventful there. Dull, to be honest. The librarians and clerks were nice and my page staff were awake most of the time and utterly jaded with the whole community. But there were moments, sound bites really, that linger in my head moreso than my other recent memories. I'd like to share with you a few Leaside one-liners:

"You know, I fought in the war so you could have long hair like that."
-old codger to me on my very first day, very first shift on desk

"My taxes pay for your salary."
"You work for us."
"You're in public service. So you're supposed to serve me."
-three quotes, three patrons, first three days

"I'm in a hurry. I'll just leave these here and you can get them."
-woman while leaving her books on the middle of the bare floor eight feet away from the desk

"She goes to advanced classes. She doesn't need you to tell her what to do."
-mother of an advanced child who is pulling books off the shelf and dumping them on the floor even as she speaks

"Everyone here knows me as the customer who uses this (a palm pilot) as my identification...(long pause)...except you."
-Mr.Palm Pilot (and thus a nemesis is born)

"No! No! No! Shh! Shh! This is Leaside, dear. We do things differently here. You have to learn that."
-the next patron after Mr.Palm Pilot, defending him

"They're all insane (or nuts or f---ed)."
-various staff at various times