Come for the Great Gatsby, Stay for the Sardines
The Weird Food We’ve Found in Our Library
Despite our “no food” policy, library patrons often smuggle coffee, sandwiches and other snacks into the library where I work. Other patrons nosh on more surprising things. Here are a few of the unusual food items librarians have found in their libraries:
A full bottle of vodka chilling in the toilet tank in the men’s room.
A box of fruit snacks, shelved like a book.
A bottle of real ketchup mixed in with the containers of pretend food in the junior room’s play kitchen.
A can of artichoke hearts.
Trail mix in the computer keyboards.
A banana in the book drop.
A slice of cheese used as a book mark.
“We once had a patron plug in a blender and start making herself a smoothie. She became irate when we told her that she couldn’t do that.”
A pile of onion peels on the floor by the cookbook section.
An empty Cool Whip container in the teen room — with three spoons in it.
An entire rotisserie chicken on the counter in the bathroom.
Half a can of Vienna Sausage in a Ficus tree.
Chicken bones under the chair cushions.
A large uneaten pizza sitting on a table in the quiet study section. We don’t know how it got there and nobody ever claimed it.
A cabbage sitting on the shelf in the travel section.
A bowl of Fruit Loops.
A pineapple.
You can come to the library to sate your hunger for knowledge. Or your hunger for cheese, artichoke hearts and Fruit Loops. Either way, we’ll always be happy to see you.
( Writing Coach and editor Roz Warren is the author of Our Bodies, Our Shelves: A Collection of Library Humor, and Just Another Day At Your Local Public Library and has appeared on both The Today Show and Morning Edition. If you want to buy inscribed copies or just want to say hi, you can reach her at [email protected])
