Saints and Sinners

I do believe I am going to rant this evening.

I've been talking a lot about writing over the past week, which I suppose is good since the purpose of this blog is primarily to reflect on my progress as a writer, but I like to think that it's important for me to focus, at times, on other matters aside from writing. Cultivate a wide variety of thoughts and experiences, you know; otherwise, all you'd ever see from me when I write fiction would be stories about writers who are writing things. How very meta that would be!

Work today was somewhat taxing, to say the least.

There is a particular patron who visits our branch every Saturday, almost without fail. She is somewhat handicapped, and you'll forgive me for describing her in tentative language, because I don't want this to sound like I hate her, or that I'm intolerant of the disabled, or whatever erroneous conclusion one might draw from my speech. I don't hate her. I don't hate many people, actually, although I'm sure I could think of a few names, if I tried, but the hate would be very well earned, I assure you.

This woman, however, pisses me off in ways that always seriously damage my calm.

She's rude in a very oblivious way. I know that it is not intentional, that it is not her intention to disrupt my calm, but that's the problem with rude people: they don't know that they are rude. Rude people who realize their rudeness stop being rude.

She isn't, however, talk on the cell phone in the library rude. She isn't "angry customer" rude. She's just... annoying. She'll chatter at me about things I don't care about when I have a line of people. She'll repeat the same thing, over and over again, whether I am actively responding or not.

Look, I am fully aware that the fact that I'm irritated by this makes me a selfish jerk. I know that she is most likely lonely, that she comes to us because there aren't many places where you can go to talk to people about things that they'll enjoy, and have them listen to you. I'm familiar with the idea of being important to somebody that I don't like. There was this kid when I was in high school that I thought was an absolute moron and the most annoying little twerp possible, especially since he would never leave me alone.

I found out after the fact, after he died, in fact, that he had something of a hero-worship thing going on. And believe me, for a long time, I regretted how I thought about him. Not about how I acted, specifically, because I always tried to be tolerant, but... no, I guess I regret that, too. I should have been more than tolerant. I should have been nice to him. It's important, I think, for your heroes to be what you think they are.

I do not mean to say that this woman hero-worships me, or any of my colleagues, but I know that we're probably the only place she really has, and that maybe for her, Saturday is the highlight of the week. And that all feeds back into my frustration. I can't help the fact that she annoys me, that I don't like to talk to her, or deal with her, or listen to her, and I feel that, or at least, part of me feels that I should. And part of me feels angry because I'm usually trapped by the fact that I have to man my post, that I can't just walk away from her or tell her to stop bothering me. Part of me feels angry that I'm the one who isn't heartless enough to tell her to leave me the fuck alone and I'm not saintly enough to see this as an opportunity to help somebody that maybe really needs it.

So what does that makes me? Aside from, you know, a jerk? Does that make me human? We're all saints and sinners, though some of us might lean further to one side than the other, but what about the rest of us? What are we?