Exhibit #1: The Bearded Wizard/Wise Old Man Archetype
Tall, bearded, slow-moving and smelling strangely of dirt, this library patron instantly reminds one of an Ent. The rotting pockets of his raincoat are full of life's cutest conspiracy theories. He has 'the shakes' at any given time of day, and wears roofing knee pads. According to my Almanac of the Charming But Useless Persistence of Past Professions In The Old And Dying, there is only a 2% chance he has done any actual roofing work in the past 25 years, but an acquaintance of mine claims to have seen the Ent straddling a roof on a side street in Bellingham. Was he there because he was hired? Was he in some sort of roofing fugue state? Either way, he is an incredible resource for terrible two-liner jokes, all of them clean, most of them having to do with talking dogs.
Exhibit #2: The Retired Community College Professor Who Is Obsessed With His Ex-Wife (May or May Not Wear A Stetson Hat)
He was once a guest professor at the U.W., and his ex-wife was an intolerable whore. These truths, clutched close to his beige-blazered breast, are the sum total of his life's accumulated wisdom, and they divide his perception of the world into two separate but equally good-for-nothin' teams: those who will never be guest professors, and those who are merely whores-in-the-making. He smells lightly of pipe tobacco in the morning, and darkly of bourbon at night.
Exhibit #3: The Happy Immigrant
The man's chronic printer problems are exacerbated by a beautiful, incomprehensible accent that fluctuates between Old World Russian and Truman Capote. Despite this, he is in a seemingly perpetual state of good humor and courtesy, the effect of which is a wild feeling of contagious happiness and a nagging sense of shame for every time you've ever been an asshole. He gestures, fairy-like, and emits a deep trollish laugh when the printer spits out a few more pages of his document. He has a beautiful wife and at least one precocious child that hides behind his wife's legs when they accompany him.
Exhibit #4: The Community Card Holder Who Smells Of Decomposing Meat (May Or May Not Have A Sidekick)
He seems like he is on the brink of death, but never dies. His biggest fan is a mustached woman, often in tow, and the sight of the two of them together presents you with the potentially nauseating possibility that they are romantically involved, but you instantly suppress this option and become certain that she is his sister and that the region of their crotches where sexual organs are normally found is occupied by a simple waste-draining tube - his made by Hasbro with a button you can press to play a machine gun sound-effect, hers made by Lisa Frank and covered in glittery horse stickers.
