Still have yet to emerge from my wireless crisis, so I was back at Bates Hall yesterday when in came a most annoying woman in head scarf and sunglasses. She was either one of these Western women who choose the veil or an overstuffed unglamorous version of the late Audrey Hepburn. I am guessing the former was the case. And the fact that she was clearly a convert was annoying, because when people are born into a religion, it’s somewhat understandable that they would continue to practice it, but converts are always out to prove something. And, as my dear old dowager friend, whom I met and mooched off of years ago in Budapest, Madame von K– used to say: “stridency in anything is unattractive.” I have not found all of her maxims to be true, nor even many of them, but this one definitely is.

Anyway. So she was annoying right off the bat. And I want to make it clear that it has nothing to do with the scarf. I have nothing against scarves. I have a colleague who is an authentic Muslim from the Middle East, and she wears the loveliest scarves. And she is really the loveliest person. See, so some of my best friends wear headscarves.

But people have an aura as surely as they have an odor. And this woman’s was rancid. She was conspicuous in the first place, but made herself even more conspicuous by the way she behaved. Bates is clearly a reading room, which means most people are reading in it. It’s a quiet place. Well, she sits down—at the table across the center aisle from mine—and starts ripping single pages out of her daily planner. One by one. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rip. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rip. R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rip.

OK, whatever. Clueless, right? Unfortunately, it just happened that this was the day I left my headphones at home. Meanwhile she busied herself very self-importantly ripping out the pages of her planner, and then ripping them up.

By the way, there’s a custodian going through now. He just paused, looked around, and then threw a bottle into one of the little metal waste paper baskets here. It made a huge sound, reverberating through the hall, which seemed to satisfy him. He sauntered to the other end of the hall, repeated the gesture, and then sauntered out. And they say the working class male is inarticulate. Well, people get their point across, don’t they? One way or another.

So back with Jameela the Ripper. I got used to it. I’m very adaptable like that. Then, after about forty-five minutes, this nutty-looking wiry little woman with a mop of frizzy grey hair came scrambling in, and went right up to Jameela—I thought sure we were gonna have a Bates Hall bum fight—and asked her if she minded her sitting down right across from her! Right across from her! It’s unheard of! Especially when there were free seats that were not right across from her! But The Friz had a laptop, and the tables only have outlets on the inside aisle-side, not the outside wall-side. It’s just one of those things. I mean, it made some kind of sense, at least.

And the Friz was nice enough about it. I mean, she could’ve just sat there. There’s no rule that says you have to ask someone’s permission to sit RIGHT FREAKIN ACROSS FROM THEM in a library reading room, after all.

But, check this out: Jameela the Ripper didn’t even acknowledge her, but immediately—without a moment’s hesitation she started very violently, noisily gathering her things up. I was like, damn, girl. Chill. Ol’ Friz is not that bad. You’re lucky Mohamed’s not here. (But, come to think of it—I have never seen Jameela and Mohamed in the same place at the same time—could it be a sort of wacky “Krippendorf’s Tribe” type thing, where Jameela actually IS Mohamed? The mind boggles.)

So here Jameela is gathering up her stuff in a noisy huff, and Ol’ Friz starts waving her hands in Mohamed–er, Jameela’s face (she still has her big, mysterious Audrey Hepburn sunglasses on, by the way) and Ol’ Friz is shouting, “Hey! Hey! You in there? Miss? Miss?!?” But Jameela refuses to answer, or even to look at her. “Yo! Lady! Can I sit here? Do you mind?!? Hello! He-lo-o-o-o-o!” Ol’ Friz is still waving her hands in Jameela’s face, until finally Jameela’s got all her little scraps of ripped-up paper gathered up and stomps off to another table, like, three tables away.

So was it a real victory for Ol’ Friz, or just by default? QOTD. I’ll tally all votes and get back to you.

Anyway, I got a little chuckle out of the whole spectacle, at least. But Ol’ Friz got the last laugh. That’s the thing about crazy people. So she ended up watching some kind of video, without headphones, on her laptop. It was just louder than whisper volume, which was the perfect volume to bug the holy hell out of anyone in her immediate vicinity.

Another day in Da Hall. Gotta love it.