The shelving robot was drunk. Or whatever you would call a robot swerving around the library throwing books at patrons.

The children's librarian handled it pretty well. She yelled at the thing first. Told it to stop that foolishness and get back to the children's section. The robot squawked something in robot language, that weird dial-tone speak that early internet modems had, and hucked a copy of Mars and Venus in Love at a spry elderly woman.

Then the children's librarian got to work.

She came up on the robot fast from behind. Quiet, like a librarian, she jumped on the back of the thing and rode it to the ground.

If you have never seen a shelving robot, open your mind camera and think about how a book cart looks. Then put a ball on one end with a webcam. Then some arms coming out of it, not bodybuilder arms but robot metal ones. Stick them where you want in your mind picture as long as they can reach the books that stack on the removable shelves in the middle. There's some computer guts, a scanner, and a speaker in there somewhere, but I'll let you figure that out. It's your mind.

So when the children's librarian rode the shelving robot down, she really kinda tipped it over while holding those arms. They ain't strong. This thing isn't a terminator. Sure, it can get a book to the top shelf or bean someone in the head. At the state library conference one year several librarians beat the robot in arm wrestling, all I'm saying.

So she takes the thing down. It lets out a cry. Pitiful, really. All that technology and able to be tackled by a librarian getting out some rage.

The old lady who got hit by the book starts yelling. Saying something about suing the library. The children's librarian stared her down while holding the thrashing robot arms. The old lady quiets down, muttering something about her head. The children's librarian asks her to go for another staff member, and the woman left.

A page comes back. He's new, looks a little like the robot, but with glasses. He's never liked the robot and told the children's librarian. The children's librarian said, “Well, now's your chance to get the fucker.”

She talked like that when there were no patrons around. Most children's librarians do. Most librarians do.

The page came forward and reached for the off switch. A robot arm came out, a third one, and poked the page in the eye.

I mean, I didn't know the robot had another arm. I'm telling the story, and I didn't know.

Dude freaked out. Grabbed his eyehole, which is what eyes become when a robot pokes one of your eyes out, and fell back screaming.

"I don't think so, Dave," the robot said and waved the skewered eyeball at the page.

The children's librarian pulled off one of the arms she was holding. The roared and poked. The children's librarian grabbed the eyeball arm, and ripped it free as well. The eyeball fell to the floor with a splat.

The librarian dropped the arm and flipped the off switch. The robot powered down, the final arm dropping to the floor.

The children's librarian pulled off that last arm just because. She said, "His name is Freddy, not Dave, you bucket of shit."