Blacklisted: What the Government is Really Doing

One of my favorite and most unnerving patrons is a woman who, as soon as she walks in, comes directly to the circulation desk and demands "What's the gossip about me today? What's everybody saying?" We have tried numerous times to convince her that we haven't heard a word about her, but she refuses to believe that. The ironic thing: no one starting gossiping about her until she insisted every time she came in that people were.



Interestingly, she looks fairly normal--still a bit stuck in the 80's with big frizzy hair, a class bufount, and blatently fake eyelashes, but who in the south isn't? The oddities are quickly realized when talking with her for more than 30 seconds and then we're left wondering who let this woman escape from the psych ward.


Her imagination never ceases to amaze me. She honestly believes we are all part of some type of conspiracy against her. Her attack methods are pretty clever. She waits until one of our staff is alone re-shelving items, and then creeps up from behind and asks them to tell her "what the h*** is going on? I know you're part of the conspiracy!"



She called me over one day to her computer by raising her hand in the air. Pretending like I didn't notice wasn't really an option, so I walked over, hoping to stay in her good graces. I didn't want to know what happened to those unfortunate victims who get on her "bad list."



Every sentence that came out of her mouth started with: "You're going to think I'm crazy, but..." Like "You're going to think I'm crazy, but when I'm typing something on this line, all of a sudden words start showing up on this other line down here." All I could think to say was "Hmm..." And "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I'm being blacklisted and red-lighted...Do you know what those words mean?" And "You're going to think I'm crazy, but see how my computer keeps freezing up? Someone in the government is messing with it because I'm being blacklisted. They're watching me."

I managed to escape after a few minutes, keeping a close watch on her. So far she has taken her fists or legal action against any of our conspiratorial staff, but I wouldn't put it past her.