fatdavid8

I'm sorry that this is so long, but today, at work, I may have seen the most hysterical thing I have ever seen. Those of you who know me, which actually is none of you , know that the twin banes of my working life are Slobby Bobby and Bob the Bum.

Slobby Bobby, my office-mate, is a pig in our office and has the enormously annoying habit of either loudly bursting into snatches of song every few minutes (he favors Gordon Lightfoot and Willie Nelson) or loudly reading aloud a word or phrase. When he has nothing to sing or read along to, he'll also often hum loudly and tunelessly to himself. He seems to be entirely unaware that he does any of these things.

Bob the Bum (so called by himself when he's speaking of himself in the third person) often comes up to talk to me while I'm trapped at the reference desk (Bob's an philosopher king of the homeless, so he never goes to the public library to bother the librarians there as they are intellectually beneath him). Bob appears to be driven along by a fairly constant nonsensical conversation that runs in his head at all times, and he, several times during one of my reference shifts, will stop by and share some of it with me. He never prefaces what he's saying or provides any sort of context for me. He just starts talking wherever he is in this internal dialogue and expects me to know what he's talking about. Also, if someone passes too closely to Bob, say within 14 feet, Bob will say a phrase or two from the conversation while they are in range. He doesn't make eye contact or address them. He just lets a little of the conversation leak out. Schizotypal non sequiturs are his FORTRAN.

So, today, I happened to notice that Bob the Bum was checking some call numbers at one of the public tables, and Slobby Bobby was standing across from him at the same table, also checking some call numbers. Bob the Bum was poring over the call number listings and muttering to himself about astrophysics when Slobby Bobby suddenly broke into song: "Peeeeeople in moooootion"
Bob looked up at him and appeared to be a little perturbed. A little while later, Slobby Bobby practically shouted, "MoMA!" Bob the Bum again looked up at him, this time a bit longer.

The Tourette's twosome continued to pour over the listings for a bit, and then Slobby Bobby rather loudly broke into a loud, sustained, "Hum-an-ah-hum-an-ah-hum-an-ah-hum-an-ah-hum-an-ah-hum-an-ah", which he punctuated with a "Hooooo, yes!"

Bob the Bum, looking perturbed and a little frightened, gave my office-mate an uneasy once-over, gathered up things, and moved to a different table.

The guy I share an office with is scaring the mentally ill homeless.



"Too Many Daves" my arse! I'm suffering from a surfeit of Bobs!