More Teen Shenanigans

I was not in a good mood when I got to work today. This was not a good day to be crabby. Schools in this city release their students early on Wednesdays and the kids are Godzilla to our 10,000 fleeing Japanese. I spent 2 consecutive hours on the desk right about the time they rolled in, yelling, screaming and smearing hot Cheetos all over the place. Fun times. Later, one of the guards asked me if a particular teen was allowed in the library, asking me to look in The Book. We tresspass them anywhere from 1 day to forever for various infractions and put the form, sans photo or any hope of actually identifying them, in that book. I did not find the teen he was asking about but I did find this little nugget. “X was laying down on the 2nd floor with Y (13). They both had their pants unzipped and were fonding each other.” X=14.

Finally, a Reference Question

A big majority of what we LAs do is akin to babysitting. At least, this is true where I work and the patrons with whom I work: children and teens. Mostly teens. Please, stop hitting each other. Please, stop swearing. Please, if you continue to spit sunflower seeds on the floor I’m going to rub your face in the spent shells before we kick you out for a few months and send your mom a sternly worded letter. I don’t know why spent sunflower seeds on the floor bothers me more than almost anything the teens do, but it does.

So, the other day when I actually helped a kid with a book report on “The Outsider” by SE Hinton, it was a pure pleasure. The boy, we’ll call him Daniel, came to the desk wanting to use our study room. It’s our one quiet place with a door. No MySpace allowed. He needed help getting his Word document open. Then he needed help printing. Fairly usual requests. But then he asked me to read his report. He also wanted me to read the assignment to make sure he got all the points right. I read “The Outsiders” about a hundred years ago but I still remember it and then the movie. We had a nice disucssion about the book and then came up with some more things to add to his report. I helped him with some grammar. I even resisted editing it for him. I didn’t want him to be in trouble because it would probably have sounded like he didn’t write it. And the best part? After he got his report all printed, I asked (expecting him to say no) if he wanted me to help him find another book to read. And he said yes! I recommended “The Wednesday Wars”. I told him my feelings would not be hurt if he didn’t want to read it but that I thought he’d enjoy it because a) it’s good book and b) it’s not a girly-girl book. Meg Cabot just did not seem appropriate. I even used the a and b thing. And he took the book! These are big doings in the life of an LA.

It’s that kind of stuff, and that kind of kid, who makes this job fun.

Can you do that in private, please?

Today in the library, I was chatting with my colleague Jeff. I happened to glance to the left and what should catch my eye but one of the teens furiously adjusting his package. I mean he was digging around down there. Then, before I had a chance to laugh, he put a hand down his pants to REALLY adjust his nether region. At that point I said, in my nice, polite, library-assistant voice, “Can you please do that in private?” He didn’t seem bothered, nor did he answer my question. Instead he walked quickly into the computer area before I could offer some hand sanitzer.

Is There a third HELL-NO Option?

Anyone who has ever spent more than five minutes with me inevitably learns how many gay boyfriends I have. So where the wingnuts who keep sending me their absolute crap “Yes on 102″ propaganda, well, they clearly never met me. I don’t associate with trash like that so how would they know that I totally support my gay boyfriends’ rights to marry each other? Hell, gay weddings are more fun anyway. Better eats, better booze, better music. For those who don’t live in Arizona or who haven’t had their eyes and ears assaulted by this crap, AZ Prop 102 is another assault on gay marriage, attempting to define marriage as one man and one woman. Whatever. I don’t even want to visit their website because I don’t want these misguided fucks to get even one more hit on their web traffic reports. But how about this? I can look up the shitheads who funded this and boycott them. It says on the peice of mail pollution I got that it was paid for by the Peter King Corp., Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Greater Phx, some out-of-state thing that I don’t care about and DMGT, LLC. I’m boycotting them.