The hell?

This email came to us yesterday at East Branch:

From Maria Redburn

Subject: Shirley Hinton banned from Phone use

Ms. Hinton is an older woman with white hair. She has been using our phone to call social security. Yesterday she had a 40 minute phone call and came back for another 20 minutes.

I've seen this lady before. She has crazy hair; I mean, we're talking Don King here. The first time I ever saw her, she came to use our phone to report a crime. She called IPD to report that some lady was selling prescription pharmaceuticals, except it was over in Garland, according to her story. So they told her to call the Garland PD. She did that and spent about thirty minutes trying to explain herself, which involved a lot of speaking very loudly and repeating herself. I thought we should have banned her from the phone before she ever got on, based solely on her smell, but hey, it's not my decision. This last time, she didn't even ask, she pulled over Janis' chair and sat down behind to use our phone, which happened to be behind our counter.