— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
My financial situation is such that I'm looking for ways to curb my spending. Booze is almost entirely eliminated from my diet, and I've cut down to only eating Mexican fast food two days a week. Still, it's not enough.
So in an effort to cut back all the money I blow on food and drink in exchange for free coffee shop wireless, I decided to try out the free, public wifi at Mission Branch Library.
Below are my notes from the hour-long experiment:
Sketchoid three tables down currently counting stacks of crumbled up bills and stuffing them into an envelope.
Pregnant Ray Charles has now fallen asleep at the table. I believe that's the aroma of plastic bottle tequila and mouth cancer.
10 minutes of solid snoring. A 70-year old H.M. Murdock dressed in corduroy seems agitated.
Man continues snoring.
Bald Burner/potential Trader Joe's employee in a Hawaiian shirt just checked out a Spanish romance audio book.
Upon further inspection, he lost to meth.
My accomplice reports that while I was in the bathroom, a “strange man” kept circling the table, eyeing my laptop. Eventually he “muttered something about a password” and left.
I think the other guy next to me just drooled on the June 2008 issue of Condé Nast Portfolio magazine.
Important man currently using weathered flip phone on speaker.
I think Ray Charles's water just broke.
Oh.
I haven't gotten any work done.
Next time I want to hang out with some creepers looking to steal my laptop, I'll try getting my work done on Muni.
Comments (10)
You used the toilet at the public library??? What were you thinking???
omg all that nasty public at the public library. can’t we keep them out somehow, like, i don’t know, maybe paying for our own shit in our own place? who knows just a thought.
I was once in a predicament similar to yours. Found finances were tightening. I found that growing up and getting a ‘grown-up’ job did wonders for my lack of funds.
The Public Library is great. Seriously. If you don’t like it, or if it scares you, stay home.
noe valley branch? and who seriously leaves their laptop unattended anywhere?
I’m underemployed right now, and money is extremely tight. Buying books is not in my budget; I can’t afford a Kindle or the $9.99 e-books either, so the library has been a lifeline for books, DVDs, and quick lookups on the public terminals as I can’t afford the fees for a smartphone either.
I use the Mission branch frequently and while it might be amusing to perpetuate stereotypes of a library being overrun by the “great unwashed” masses, you neglected to mention the folks using the library to apply for jobs, or otherwise better themselves, or the dozens of students doing their homework. I’ve used a laptop there on several occasions and have managed to get work done.
As for the folks whose presence so offended you; where would you like them to go? Perhaps you might try hanging out at OccupySF for a while and become part of the solution, rather than just another snarky hipster.
As a late-twentysomething, whenever I’m done making fun of the poor and downtrodden I like to distract myself with another $30 Spreadshirt that I can use for my blogging avatar.
rich white kid hates public library.
someone alert the media!
people really take the holier than thou shit in the comments on this blog to a new level.
SF Public Libraries rule….they’ve got almost everything, and if they don’t have it, they can order it for you from another library!