...We'd All Have Old Bicycles

Boyfriend Extraordinaire had a bicycle that he was selling, and given that it’s a popular line of bikes and of the mountain bike genus, it’s fairly difficult to gauge how old it is. He guessed, based on wear and style, that the bike was about 4 years old. So, given what he knew and what he guessed at, he placed an ad for the bike, complete with photo and as many details as he could.

Right away, someone emailed him about the bike, only this was not an interested buyer, but a self-appointed fact-checker of the Internet. The guy, in a very hostile manner, demanded Boyfriend Extraordinaire change his ad, because this guy said he had a bike that looked identical to this one, which was at least 8 years ago, and he estimated the bike to be more like 20 years old.

At first, B.E. was a little concerned. Could it really be 20 years old? He started doing a little research about it and inconclusively decided that he wasn’t going to be able to find out the exact age of this bicycle, so he left the ad alone.

Not long after, he received another email from the hostile guy, who reiterated the age of the bike was wrong and told B.E. he had to change the ad.

By now, B.E. was getting irritated. How can anyone, who is also guessing at the age, demand that his guess is better and send such emails to a stranger? People have a lot of nerve what they ask of others in this world, under the false pretense that they are righter than anyone else. It’s another reason why Web 2.0 infuriates me so.

Don’t get me wrong. I love receiving the comments and feedback from my readers after I write a post, but have you ever read a news article online that has opened itself up to reader comments? Dear Spaghetti Monster, people are not only vicious, but they’re fucking stoopit!

There was a murder recently in my town, and it was in an area with low income renters of every possible nationality. One of the commenters said that the article needed to identify the race of the victim so that reader could know if he should care about the dead guy. This sparked a veritable war of comments where some claimed that you should be colorblind, and others insisted that race was a factor in whether or not the murder was worthy of their attention. Sadly, this was a claim made by people of multiple races. What a horrific end to this horrific story!

The same thing happens on the police blotter. If there is a police response of any kind that involves someone with a Hispanic-sounding last name, commenters go hog-wild insisting that this person be deported under the pretense than anyone with an Hispanic-sounding name is an illegal or unworthy of living in this country. Even if it was a speeding ticket listed in the blotter, people responded this way, or worse, when the Latino name was one of the victims. Absolutely no compassion.

It’s not just racism. I have seen with my own eyes that when someone posts a picture of him/herself online, it’s like half the globe thinks this is an invitation to pretend like you’ve lost 100 IQ points and are now part of some radio shock jock challenge to come up with the most creative insult. Even on seemingly peaceful photo sites, I’ve read comments by people who will rip others to shreds for posting a character picture of a homeless guy, or even a kid with crooked teeth. On YouTube, it’s as if every 12-year-old with security issues and bad spelling skilz has made it their mission to find every video uploaded and leave a shitty comment about it. I uploaded a video of some birds squawking, and I misidentified them as plovers when they were actually killdeers. JEEBUS, you’d have thought I deemed them “Yo mamma!” People left me the nastiest corrections in my comments. And one was not enough. Even when three or four people had pointed out that the bird was wrong, others would still add to it in their own shitty way. What the hell? I had to go through and delete the comments, and then more showed up! Finally, I turned off the comments altogether. The more I deal with people, the more certain I am that not only is there no god, but if I was a god, I’d be ashamed to call the human race my creation.

I am really starting to hate the Internet.

B.E. gets comments like this about ads he places all the time. Everyone feels like their opinion should count for something, but frankly, it doesn’t. He’s wise beyond his years and doesn’t respond to it unless it’s racist garbage, and then he does something else, like put up an ad that makes fun of racists. He doesn’t respond directly to people. He doesn’t email them his opinion and state it as fact. He gets it. He really gets that by and large, people suck, and sometimes you have to be above it.

This was tested when he received his third email from this jamoke, who was now so livid that the ad hadn’t changed to reflect his own guess at the age of the bike, that he was accusing B.E. of intentionally defrauding the potential buyers (and he was not a potential buyer, but a nosy ad reader). Well, B.E. could take no more. We talked about what a retard this guy was, but we also sat down and invested some real time in researching this line of bikes. Guess what. It only began 12 years ago, so there was no way the bike chould be 20 years old. Also, the design hadn’t changed one iota in those 12 years, so this bike might be as old as 12, but given the condition and lack of wear and tear, it was just as good as a bike that was 4 years old.

I asked B.E. what he was going to do. I sincerely expected him to bombard the asshat with corrected information about this particular bike, proving the guy wrong and calling him a bunch of names in between the facts. That’s what I would’ve done, which is likely why of late I've been suffering with anxiety, insomnia and high blood pressure.

B.E. is much more civilized. He said he was not going to respond directly to this guy, wasn’t going to address him in any way, but he was going to place the ad again and change the age of the bike in the ad to say that it was 400 years old. No sincere buyer would ever believe it was 400 years old, and B.E. could laugh it off and say it was a typo, which should’ve read that it was about 4 years old instead of 400.

I was still angry and I didn’t think it was enough. I thought the moron should be made to suffer the words of an eloquent and scathing response, which surely would’ve created an email war of epic proportions. At some point, I’d report the guy as spam and be done with him. This concept of trying to poke fun at the guy by making the bike so old that it was not to be believed seemed too, I don’t know, subtle, or too suave. This was not something that needed a delicate hand. This was something that needed a brutal, cerebral blow!

Once again, I was wrong.

The ad for the 400-year-old bike was a success on all fronts. Not only did B.E. swiftly sell the bike for the asking price without so much as a comment from the buyer about the typo in the ad, but the dickhead who sent him three emails demanding the age be altered actually sent him another email, and this time he said that the ad was funny and he apologized for his previous emails.

WHAT THE FUCK?

People don’t back down. People don’t apologize. People don’t realize they were shitheads. What’s this? What’s this anomaly? What is this event that has caused a black hole in my image of society and driven doubt and optimism into a chasm that was happily chock-full of pessimism and misanthropy? What the fuck?

And so, this week I’ve learned that some of the meanest, most imposing personalities can actually respond well to a slight nudge rather than being beat about the head with more insults, the likes of which probably made them into what they are. And I’d like to add that I am likely one of the mean, imposing personalities of which I speak, but I don’t step into other people’s lives to deliver my worthless opinions about whatever it is that sparks me up. Nope, I blog about it and use my words to purge myself of my fury. But that doesn’t solve problems and it just makes others defensive. Now I get it. A 400-year-old bike makes a good argument for taking a step back, coasting for a while, and not taking things too personally. No one’s perfect, not even close, and I’m doing myself more harm than good by being ready to pounce on people when they piss me off, which they do constantly. I need a 400-year-old bike. For my own well-being.

And so, that’s what I’m going to do. Coast for a little while on my ageless bike.

I Got It!

It's true! I got my Snuffleupagus Check! I got it. And it was a Snuffleupagus Check.

Now you see it; now you don't.

Paid part of one bill. Now it's like it was never here. I could almost wonder if I'd made the whole thing up.

So much for stimulating the economy.

...Postellas Would Count

Today I ran into the mother of the girl I wrote about in my last post, my friend from high school, Amy. Her 13-year-old daughter seemed so freaked out over my story about her mother and me going to head-banging concerts that I felt like I should warn Amy that I might have traumatized her kid.

Me: I, um, had this conversation with your daughter the other day and I think I might have damaged her.

Amy: Haha, oh really?

Me: Yeah, she asked me if I knew her mom and I said we’d gone to high school together. Then she mentioned the concert we went to when we had to leave early.

Amy (laughing hysterically): Oh, she asked about that?

Me: Yeah, so I kinda told her the story. But I think it did something to her. You should’ve seen her face. She was…traumatized.

Amy: Oh, that’s a change. Usually she’s the one traumatizing me!

Me: Heh, well, I guess it’s kinda weird to go to the library and find out that the librarian was friends with your mother and they went to heavy metal concerts together, with stage-diving and mosh pits.

Amy (laughing): Yeah, that might have been unsettling. Good! Now I know why she came home and asked if you were the one I went to high school with.

Me: Hah. She’s checking up on us.

Amy: She said, ‘The librarian you know, which one is she?’ I said, ‘Who, Nikki?’ She said, ‘I don’t know. Is she the cool one with the blue tips in her hair?’ I said, ‘Um…maaaaaaaybeeeeeee.’ She said, ‘You haven’t seen her in a while, have you?’ I said, ‘Um…maaaaaaaaybeeeeeeee.’

Me: Ah-ha! Never admit you don’t know something!

Amy: Damn straight! You show these kids any sign of weakness and they nail you!

So, the important thing we got out of this conversation is that I am cool. That’s right! That’s me! The cool one. With the blue tips in my hair. Or, at least I’m cool to the 13-year-olds. And we ALL know that 13-year-olds are the epitome of cool, and when they say something is cool, it deems it such universally. There is no arguing with 13-year-old-dubbed “coolness.”

Yikes. Maybe it’s time to let go of the blue hair.

Nah! I’m still enjoying being blue-haired.


* * * * *


One of our board members came in today and requested a book. Unfortunately, the book hasn’t been published yet and only three libraries in our system have the title in the catalog with a status of “on order.” I tried to place the hold on the item, but the holds were not allowed.

The board member, serious as can be, looked at me and asked, “They don’t care if I’m a trustee?”

The desire to slap her silly was nearly overwhelming. Yes, you self-righteous dildo, all the libraries in our system block holds going out to the lowly people like patrons and staff, but they will definitely send a hot item that isn’t even fully cataloged yet to you, just because you’re a trustee at a distant library. That’s right. There is no end to your privileges. You not only get immunity from fines and going to collection (by the way, so sorry we accidentally sent you to collection oh-so long ago because you had the book that was TWO YEARS overdue), and you get a free laptop with computer lessons and upkeep, but you also get to ILL books from other libraries that won’t let anyone else on earth place on hold. There is no end to your power.

Gag.

No, lady. They don’t care if you’re a trustee. I don’t even care that you’re a trustee and you’re a trustee at MY LIBRARY.

Yes, it’s MY LIBRARY more than it’s hers. I spend more time there, am more emotionally invested in its success, contribute to bettering it, know its insides more thoroughly, and I care more about it.

MINE.


* * * * *


We have a guy who comes into the library to use the computers, and he’s a dick. A great big one. I mean almost 7 feet tall, husky, hairy, smelly, and totally disrespectful: a great big dick.

And not in a good way.

Often we are telling him to put his chair down because he likes to tip it back onto the rear legs, and with his size, I’m afraid that these 20+-year-old chairs, which are starting to suffer irreparable breaks, are going to snap like twigs and send him into backward summersaults where he’ll crash into someone I actually care about. I don’t want someone I like getting hurt because of his stupidity. Even if he didn’t break the chair with his heft, he could lose his balance and fall backward into the table and put a nasty dent in it. He’s been asked repeatedly not to lean back in the chairs, not only because it’s potentially dangerous (and damaging to our property), but because he then takes up so much space in the computer rows that people can’t get up and down the aisles. I don’t like Mr. Chair-Leaner. And I don’t like that each time he comes in, I have to tell him at least once to put his damn chair down.

He’s never nice about it, either. It’s always something he thinks we’re being petty about and he slams the chair down and huffs about it. He’s never given me lip when I ask him to do this, but evidently he has with others. Now it’s routine that we’re going to have to treat him like a teenager and reiterate proper furniture use to this 32-year-old man. It pisses me off. I decided recently that I was going to get harsher with him, because if he was a teen, I’d have long ago put my foot down with this kind of repeat offense.

Early into my afternoon shift, I saw him leave the building and breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t going to have to spend my shift babysitting him today. He wasn’t gone too long, though.

When he returned, he entered the very quiet building alone, and proceeded to do something that made me uncomfortable.

He waited until he was right next to my desk, and then he held his library card in his left hand and made his right hand into a pretend gun. He then made noises and gestures like he was shooting his library card, and then made very loud noises like the card had exploded violently.

My reaction was to look away in disgust. He’s a pathetic loser and I really hope someone bashes his head with a phone book. In fact, they can borrow ours! What a scumbag! And how stupid is it to pretend to blow away your library card, and then walk up to the reservation station with that library card so you can use a computer? How much do you hate your library card if you use it two seconds later to get something you want? MORON!

Then!

Then he signed in at his computer and immediately leaned back in his chair.

Oh no you di’n’t!

I watched some kid try to get behind him, and if that kid hadn’t been thin as a rail, he probably wouldn’t have fit down the aisle. Yet, at no time was Mr. Chair-Leaner concerned with the fact that he was inconveniencing other people.

Yep, I walked right over and told him to put his damn chair down. He did so with a huff. No apology. No understanding. He damn near pouted.

If someone acts like a 4-year-old, can I smack the back of his head and put him in the corner? Seriously.

I walked back to my desk and waited. Ten minutes later a group of kids made some noise that drew my attention and I turned around to see Mr. Chair-Leaner leaning back in the chair again.

DUDE! How stupid are you?! Can it be quantified? Don’t make me guess because it won’t be flattering!

Again, I waltzed over to tell him to put his chair down, and he saw me coming so he slammed it back on the floor with a sigh of irritation before I even said a word to him. This time I told him if he did it again, I’d kick him off the computers. He said nothing. He didn’t even look up from the computer at me.

I dare him to come back tomorrow night and pull this shit. He is no different from the teenagers who we have warned and warned and warned about their misbehavior, and now we don’t give them warnings anymore. If I see him leaning back in his chair, I’m ending his computer session.

Dick.


* * * * *



Yesterday the sign guys finally finished the rebuilding of the library’s sign, which you may recall was blown down on a breezy day last year, and it crumbled to pieces.

I noticed as I was driving in to work yesterday that it’s so far away from the road that it’s almost obliterated by a tree. When that tree is full of leaves this summer, the sign won’t be visible until you’re right upon the building. Funny. What do you want to bet that this will be solved by cutting down this very nice tree? A tree which predates all the employees. Something I learned long ago: seniority means shit at this library. So, I think the tree’s days are numbered.

Then again we’re assuming the structure of the sign is solid.

If you could hear me laughing, it would be reminiscent of a hyena.

As Christi and I were leaving tonight, we had a little sign talk.

Me: Look! We have a nice, new sign up finally and tonight we’re going to have a storm with winds over 50 miles per hour.

Christi: Oh shit! There it goes!

Me: I think I need to bring my camera to work tomorrow. I just have this feeling it might come in handy.

Christi: I like it better when the sign is destroyed. It’s like a jungle gym for the kids. If they get rambunctious, I can just say, ‘Hey! You! Why don’t you go outside and play on the sign for a while!?’

That’s because the library isn’t on a busy street, or the suggestion would be to go play in a busy street.

I don’t know what’s more precious: our lack of faith in the sign construction or our love of children that would send them off to play in debris with live wires protruding from it.

In some ways I hope the sign lives through the night because it’s something we have to look forward to in the future.

Did someone sneeze? Someone go check the sign!

Is it drizzling outside? Someone go check the sign!

Did a butterfly flap its wings somewhere in Costa Rica?

You get the picture. And you’ll get real pictures if it falls again.

...Only YOUR Mom Would Be Embarrassing

Mothers exist to embarrass their daughters, don’t they?

For Mother’s Day, since I was going to have to work today, I took Mom out Saturday for a day of shopping wherever she wanted to go, and we had a nice time. Unfortunately, each and every place we went, she would strike up these bizarre, inappropriate conversations with anyone she could, bragging about me. It was driving me nuts.

At one store that specialized in imported, beaded jewelry, Mom asked where specific pieces came from, and when she was informed this was from Kenya, and this was from Bangladesh, she interrupted the salesperson to say something like, “My daughter over there makes jewelry like this. Her pieces are BEAUTIFUL.” Awkwardly, the salesperson would smile and tell her how nice that was.

Cringe.

I apologized silently when she wasn’t looking and they smiled knowingly.

Mothers.

I realize she’s trying to pay me compliments everywhere we go, but the timing was bad and the misplaced attention was rude. But what are you going to do, right? At least she wasn’t wearing a miniskirt and flirting with all the men, because that kind of mother I think I might never go out in public with. Sometimes the grass isn’t greener.

Though I know my mom’s generation of mothers are now mostly grandmothers, my mom knows she won’t be a grandmother, thus she bestows her adult kids with all the grandmotherly cheesiness of a fully-fledged grandma. The woman still buys me candy on the holidays, which I have in a bucket from multiple years past. I should donate it to the parade committee at work.

Speaking of work, one of the girls I went to high school with frequents the library, and while we were close friends 20 years ago, we now relegate ourselves to happy-to-see-you conversations and didn’t-we-have-fun-back-then laughs. And we did have fun. When she wasn’t in rehab. She claims she graduated with the rest of the class, but I don’t remember seeing her for one minute during my senior year due to her being in and out of drug treatment centers and on maternity leave. Who knew you got maternity leave from school?! Fast forward 20 years and she’s clean and sober, married to her high school crush, with three kids, and driving a school bus to make ends meet. She’s still as intense as she ever was, and mostly just as immature, but she can also make me laugh just like she used to do.

Her 13-year-old daughter is one of our regulars, and while she isn’t a troublemaker, you can see that she’s hovering right on the edge of temptation, sometimes at the library working hard on a project, or sitting in the Teen Area causing a ruckus and flirting with one of our shelvers. It’s all very familiar to me. She’s a lot like her mother.

The other day she approached the reference desk and asked if she could use our phone to call home for a ride. I obliged. When she hung up we had a very bizarre conversation.

Her: You know my mom, right?

Me: Yep. We were friends in high school.

Her: She said you guys went to concerts a lot together.

Me: Yep. Local bands only, though. We knew people in bands and went to their shows.

Her: My mom said you guys went to a concert that got really wild and you had to leave early once. What happened?

Me: Oh yeah! It was a thrash metal band and I knew the singer. We were up close to the stage, but there was a mosh pit right behind us. Some guys started stage-diving and one got passed around back toward me, but since I was in the last row before the mosh pit, there weren’t enough people to hold him up and he kinda got dropped on me and we both fell into the mosh pit. We got pretty beat up in there. I was wearing glasses back then and they fell off and got broken. It just got crazier after that and we decided to leave. But I learned something: never wear glasses in a mosh pit!

You should have seen the look on her face!

I guess it’s pretty weird to think about your mom that way, but to know that your mother and the local librarian used to mosh at thrash concerts together is probably a bit too much for your little brain to handle.

Poor thing. She hasn’t spoken to me since.

It’s a good thing I didn’t tell her about when her mom was 16 and got drunk and drove over the six-foot fence to park in her parents’ backyard. That was one of the events that landed her in rehab.

I’m not quite sure what kind of mom she is, if she tells her daughter her horror stories to scare her straight, or if these are things this young girl may never know about her mom’s past. If her reaction to my story is any indication, she probably does not want to know about her mom’s teen years.

What I do know is that even if I don’t have kids, by associating with moms, I become a mom-like figure myself. While I don’t have the benefits of having a child (whatever those are), I do have the benefit of being able to embarrass the hell out of my friends’ kids, and sometimes that’s a priceless experience too.

I hope everyone had a very happy Mother’s Day.

...We'd Skip Right Over Sixth Grade

I’ve done so many stupid, self-centered and immature things just in the past few weeks that I have questioned just how it is I manage to get through the day without being recalled to elementary school to relearn what I clearly have forgotten about being an adult. Well, I had a rude awakening today. I’m a lot more mature than I thought.

Sally is a sixth grader, and she received a love letter from a boy in her school with whom she has been close friends for a long time. In this note, the boy asked Sally to be his girlfriend, and he closed the letter by declaring that he loves her. Sally promptly freaked the fuck out because she is already dating someone, although her parents have told her she’s too young to date. She assured me that even though they have been dating for a month, she hasn’t done hardly anything with the boyfriend except go to a movie once, and they held hands. However, they only held hands briefly because his hands are so small that it creeped her out.

If only she knew what having small hands means.

Of course it means you wear small gloves. Dirty readers!

And can you even remember when you dated someone for a month and only held hands, and only once at that? Wow. I don’t think that EVER happened for me. Did I just out myself as a slut?

Evidently, Sally keeps company with people who are quite vicious, which I didn’t think began until high school but her story reminded me that it does indeed start right abound birth. For some, I’m sure it starts earlier. Sally’s vicious friend is named Mandy, and Mandy can’t keep a secret to save her life. Not only does she spread secrets to everyone she sees, but sometimes she spreads full-on lies when the there aren’t any juicy true secrets to reveal. Mandy was present when Sally read this letter, and when Sally gasped over the boy’s proclamation of love for her, Mandy wanted all the details. She then proceeded to spread them all around the school. Sally was mortified.

Sally’s wasn’t sure what to tell the boyfriend now that everyone in school knew another boy asked her out and declared his love for her.

With the letter firmly in hand, she tried to talk to the boyfriend about the situation, and she showed him the letter she received wanting some advice from him. Unfortunately, Sally wasn’t wise enough to approach the boyfriend without Mandy nearby, so when her boyfriend reacted, he had to behave in a way he knew would save face when Mandy told everyone about this circumstance that was unfolding.

He simply said to her, “Well, you should date HIM then,” and walked away.

Sally tried to beg him to listen to her, and she insisted she had no romantic feelings for this other boy who gave her the love note. Her only concern was staying with her boyfriend and figuring out how to get the other boy to leave her alone.

I had to interrupt Sally at this point and ask why her boyfriend would be so keen on dumping her when she was clearly a hot commodity.

Sally explained that no one was supposed to know they were dating.

When I asked why, Sally explained that the boyfriend was a very secretive person and liked to keep his private life private.

This is so Sean-and-Madonna, isn’t it? Oh shit! Do you know that Sally is so young that Sean and Madonna divorced nine years before Sally was born. I need to find a more recent reference.

Anyway, Mandy isn’t stupid (just evil), so she ran off to tell everyone that Sally and her boyfriend were secretly dating, but Sally got dumped when the other boy gave her the love note.

Ooooh, more details on the evening news.

Sally is sad now because she’s been dumped by one she does like, hit on by one she doesn’t like, and everyone in the school knows her misery because one of her close friends is a blabbermouth.

It gets worse.

Mandy blabbed the whole story to everyone, and now Sally’s ex-boyfriend is so upset that everyone found out, that he won’t even talk to her. Sally, with rivaling people skills, is giving the other boy the silent treatment and running from him whenever she sees him, even though they were friends before he wrote the love letter. Sally is smart enough not to confide in Mandy or ask her for advice, but she described her sense of loss over being dumped as “so bad, it almost made me cry!”

Despite all the drama and what seemed to me like something an adult might be devastated about, Sally said that though she wants to get her boyfriend with the creepily small hands back, her focus is to not let her parents find out about her dating at such a young age.

Do you even remember when that was a concern, on top of worrying that your boyfriend is ashamed to be dating you, your best guy friend is in love with you, one of your close female friends has betrayed you, but you also have to be extremely careful that all of this happens without your parents finding out?

I told Sally that it takes a long time, but boys do mature and she will find good female friends who are trustworthy. I told her it’s going to take a heck of a lot longer for the boys to mature, though.

Sally concurred, saying that her older sister’s boyfriends are all idiots who do nothing but smoke pot. Her sister is a freshman. Sally wondered if by the age of 20 the boys would be better.

I told her they would because I didn’t have the heart to tell the truth. The truth being that her wait for boys her age to show some maturity would likely not occur until she had a Masters in her hand. For a couple years.

Now, I know I have drama in my life, but I just don’t know how sixth-graders survive in this incredibly hostile environment we call school. If a tiny fraction of this crap occurred with adults in the real world, nothing would ever get done.

What if our jobs were as much of a nightmare as the average sixth grade classroom is?

I may not be pleased that I’ve reached the ripe old age of 35, and I may feel like an immature dork quite often, but when I hear stories from 12-year-olds, I’m relieved to be my age, to have my experience, and to know that my years of this type of torture are long gone.

...Eh, Nothing.

You know how they say that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?

I choose to abide by those words of wisdom tonight and skip a post.

Instead, if you're so inclined, Doggie Extraordinaire has been at it again.

And hopefully having this weekend off will do wonders for my creative juices and I'll be able to write something worth reading afterward.

Cheerio! Or Raisin Bran! Whatever.

...All My People's Cars Would Be There

When I woke up this morning, I did not want to get out of bed. It was cold, I was under three blankets, and I was exhausted from tossing and turning all night.

And today is my 16-year anniversary working at the library.

I’ve worked at the library for almost half my life.

Lately I haven’t enjoyed it much, which is unusual because despite my incessant complaining and poking fun at everything about it, I really do enjoy what I do. It’s not life and death, and mostly my contributions don’t improve the quality of anyone’s life. I’m like a drug dealer, and I give people a quick fix of what they want, whether that’s a campy novel or access to a database of journals for a research project. I sit at the reference desk staring at the people and trying to mentally will them to check out books that we’ve put on one of our elaborate displays, and sometimes I whisper, “Yes, you really want that book on kayaking! Check it out. It wants to go home with you.” Sometimes they hear me and smile. I am a book-pusher, among other things, but it’s one of the things that always makes me smile. And lately this has been the only thing I have enjoyed about my job.

When I drive to work, I go through a checklist of things I plan to do that day, and I go through a checklist of people who could potentially make my day miserable, and I hope that they’re home sick. When I pull into the parking lot, I scan for cars. I take a tally of cars belonging to people I care about, who would be there for me if someone like Jean got in my face about something, or if there’s an email in my inbox announcing that we are now supposed to use only the staff lounge to pee because the other washrooms are for patron use only. I know that I can turn to them to get my frustration off my chest so that I can get through the day and get my daily tasks accomplished, but if their cars aren’t in the lot, I know the day is likely going to be taxing. Their presence, even if I do not see them that day, is enough to help me park my car and get out to face the human obstacles that would like nothing more than to emotionally derail me. Who knew their cars would bring me comfort?

For over a month now, I have felt more vulnerable because a couple cars have not been in the parking lot.

Ann’s car has not been and probably won’t be in our lot again, because she lives and works in another state now. That hole makes my heart ache. I’ve wondered if my recent spiral into job misery has been connected to missing her so much and not having her around to make me smile. She taught me something I might never have learned from anyone else in my life, and that’s forgiveness. One day she told me that she does get very mad at people, people she cares about, friends and family, but she’s able to let go of that anger when she realizes that these people don’t mean to hurt her, and mostly they’re doing the best they can. That helps me. Often I forget this and lash out at people who I think have shit on me, but Ann’s words resonate in my head and I think that there really aren’t all that many people in the world striving to hurt us, and aside from a lot of self-centeredness, people really are doing the best that they can. It’s hard to stay angry over the little things if you recognize this. Ann and I do still email frequently, and we see one another every couple weeks so she’s still in my life, but I do miss the everyday conversations and wonder what little glimmers of brilliance I’m missing out on.

So, today I dragged my ass out of bed, got dressed, made lunch, drove to work, and found myself wondering if sixteen years of working in this library would ever begin improving again. I scanned the lot and did a mental tally of cars that mattered to me: Marina’s car, Briana’s car, and Christi’s car. Three. Would that be enough?

And that’s when I spotted it.

Parked nearest the staff entrance was my boss’s car; my boss who has been out on medical leave for over a month. We weren’t expecting him to return so soon and I actually prepared myself for the possibility that a patron had the same car he does, and that patron parked at the staff door. I strolled through the library, barely coherent as I had conversations with a few coworkers, my brain not yet acclimated to the often hostile work environment and my mental armor not fully donned. When I got to the office and threw open the door, there he was, our leader!

This was it! This was what I couldn’t pinpoint as the core of my feeling of instability and vulnerability at work. Our leader was gone and we’d been flapping in the wind for five weeks. I knew we all missed him, and I knew in many ways we were holding our breaths until he returned, but I hadn’t recognized just how powerful that would be. I felt decapitated without him around. He keeps me focused and mellow, he goes to bat for us, he is our connection to the adminisphere, and he is our biggest fan. He is our leader, and often I forget just how important it is to have a leader you can count on to actually lead. He gets things done in an environment notorious for meetings, committees and policies that are actually counterproductive to progress. He makes us laugh hysterically when we least expect it, and when we feel like we’re falling apart, he fixes things. He’s not into the gossip or the games that are prevalent in our library, and he’s probably the only one able to circumvent the nonsense and get down to business. And most important of all, when he’s not actively doing any one of the things I’ve already mentioned, just knowing he’s there gives me a sense of security and grounding that make working there not so much like being in a tornado. I once described him as my umbrella: someone who filters a lot of rain from falling directly on me, and even if it’s sunny, it’s good to know he’s there because I feel like I can take a lot more bad weather if he’s around. He does make me feel stronger, but it’s not all about bad weather. Really, he’s just a great guy to call my boss.

Later in the day, the head of Tech Services checked in with me to see if my day was going any better and I declared that things were definitely on the up-and-up because our leader had returned. He said he had no idea that we felt this way about our department head, and I had to hold myself back from gushing. Many in management don’t realize just how great he is as a leader because they see him as an equal, but if you ask anyone not in management, they will tell you they wish they worked in my department if just to share my boss.

Today went well. Better than it has in weeks, and it was no different than any other day aside from the fact that there is one more good person in the building now, and one more car to look for in the lot and find relief when I spot it.

This morning I woke up wondering if I’d make it beyond my sixteen-year anniversary, and tonight I’m going to bed knowing that this milestone could be the tip of the iceberg. Sure, I could get fired tomorrow, but I won’t be giving up anytime soon. I am a proud book-pusher. I buy books for our patrons that I think they’ll love and then conspire with coworkers to make big displays to celebrate them, and cheer from the sidelines when one of my books goes home with someone. Oh, and answer some questions, too. Now I can go back to focusing on my job again.

The lot is full.

...Wood Ducks Would Save Me Everyday

Last week we received an email at work that irked me.

This is not an uncommon event at my library. Email seems to be the preferred mode of delivering irritating news to your coworkers. Isn’t technology fun? Now instead of plucking an irritating note out of your mailbox, or having to look someone in the eye and not make faces when they deliver irritating news, we have reached the pinnacle of communication with electronic mail delivered instantly to everyone on staff, for the ostensible purpose of irritating as many people as possible at as close to the same time as possible. The only thing that can deliver instant library-wide news of greater irritation is a meeting, and that’s only more irritating because it is what it is, a meeting, which predisposes you to irritation.

So, the email of irritude stated that staff is no longer allowed to ask the Circ clerks to make change for them from the cash register. Instead, we are to direct our smaller monetary denomination needs to one of only three specific people: the director, the supply lady, or the head of Circ. Bad news is that these people turn into pumpkins at 4:30 each weekday, and suffer a weekend-long pumpkin-state starting at 5 PM on Friday, not to be reversed until early Monday morning. What’s this mean for those of us who work nights and weekends and might only have a five, but need caffeine from the Coke machine? No explanation was offered. I’m not even going to go into the fact that the director and head of circ are out sick probably more often than they’re actually present in the building. (Nope. Not going to mention that.) The only people who would be more inaccessible and inconvenient to assign the change-making duties to would be the building manager, who leaves each day before lunchtime, or the building maintenance guy, who works 6 am to 9 am, a few days a week.

Okay, I accept that because of this decision, now I have to tackle a patron, create a sense of fatal fear for the bodily damage I would do to him/her if s/he ever double-crossed me, and persuade this patron to take my five to Circ and ask for singles, then bring me back all five singles without getting caught. That’s not a problem. I can do patron intimidation. They will do my bidding and they will be grateful for the opportunity to serve me.

Yet, what strikes me is that so much money is transacted in the cash register that it frequently runs out of small bills before one of the Holy Three (director, supply lady or head of Circ) who have access to the cache of cash can replenish the smaller denominations. So, what do stores do? Well, like smart people, when bills start running low, they ask someone to change out their bills. Makes sense, yes? Perhaps they should behave like other businesses that have cash registers and at the end of each shift the cash register should be changed out for appropriate amounts of each denomination or coinage, so that they don’t start delivering change in pennies or turn people away who want to pay fines but only have a twenty. It’s happened, believe it or not. If there can be no mid-day checking of the register, or mid-weekend checking of the register, wouldn’t it make sense to keep some smaller bills locked up somewhere accessible to staff in case there’s a run on singles or quarters? I would think so. Perhaps they shouldn’t give out twenty singles to five people in a given day and limit the quantity of small bills they will change out for any individual. I’m cool with that. But no, we’re going to prevent staff altogether from obtaining smaller bills or coins from Circ, the only people granted accessibility to the cash register, and make them track down one of the three elusive folks who can do this huge favor for them. I find it hard to believe that staff makes up all that much of a demand for making change.

When last I checked, running the register and making change were job duties of Circulation, and they now have the right to deny their fellow coworkers the same services they would grant to patrons. How weird is that?

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could choose what services of our job we would offer to our coworkers? I’m liking where this is going!

You’re a clerk and you want to fax something? Oh hells no! This fax machine is for patrons only. Try Kinkos.

You’re a shelver and you want me to place a hold for you? Nuh-uh. I can only do that for every person in our district who IS NOT on our payroll.

You’re the director and you want to suggest we buy a copy of Julie Andrews’ autobiography for our library? HAH, as if!

You’re in Adult Services and you want someone in Tech Services to fix a catalog record that was entered erroneously? Get real! Only the patrons can make this request! You’re just a lowly staff member.

You’re the head of Youth Services and you want me to search our catalog for a book for you because you’re not sure how to do it yourself? Whoa! No way, Jose! I only search for people who don’t call me from an inside line.

You’re ANYONE on staff and you want to check out material we own? Shut the fuck up! This library is not for you. You only take away from what we can offer the patrons.

That’s what gets me: staff requests are viewed as taking away from the patrons.

However, it would be kinda nice to have that ability to discriminate against those you will and won’t do things for, as long as it’s a staff member you’re discriminating against.

Okay, sure, I’m blowing this out of proportion. It’s not exactly a necessity to have change made so that we can have snacks or drinks from the vending machine, and it’s not that big of a deal to me personally, but the principle irks me. It irks me because it seems like a weasely way of getting out of being more responsible with the cash. This is the very same department where only a year ago they couldn’t get the register to balance within $50 of the correct amount at any given time, so I can understand why they would want to limit the amount of times the clerks open the register. Each time it opens, it’s off by a little more. And I can also see how much more grueling work it would make if someone at, say, 4:00 each day would check the register and make sure there’s enough small cash to get them through the night. And I can also see why they wouldn’t want to keep an extra stash of singles hidden somewhere that only the clerks had access to, because adding more money would only increase exponentially the amount of costly mistakes that they can make. And finally, I can also see that it would be really frustrating to have to admit that your people are irresponsible with money and that you WERE WRONG IN MAKING THIS DECISION to deny staff members the same service they offer patrons.

Silly, the stuff that irks me, huh?

So, instead of dwelling on this and gnawing away at what little remains of my fingernails, or causing the frustration furrows in my brow to make permanent creases in my face, I write a long and bitchy post, punctuated with my own humor (and yes, I was kidding through most of this – but only to keep from crying), and then I go out and find creatures on this earth who I think are more deserving of occupying the planet than most of the humans I know.

Like these wood ducks, who are still hanging out in my neighborhood forest preserve. I love them. I love them more than words can say.

And these baby geese, who clumsily waddle down our roads, stopping traffic and making me smile.



Or these gorgeous mute swans I discovered inhabit a nearby lake.


And this loon, who hangs with the swans. Someone told me recently that there is supposed to be one loon to every lake around here, but this is my first time seeing a loon in this area.


And my first belted kingfisher, with lunch held tightly in her beak.


So, I think I should be leaving for an extended break halfway through my shifts at work to go to the forest preserve and reconnect with things that make me proud to be alive, before I lose the will to live.

Over something as stupid as Circ's refusal to give me change.

...I'd Have All the Answers

Today I went into the women’s washroom and was minding my own pee when I heard another woman enter. I heard the familiar sound of a key jingling, and I knew right away it was a coworker.

We have locked doors everywhere we go and must carry around a master key to all the offices and staff-only areas at all times, so the sound of a single key bouncing into things usually gives away the presence of a staff member.

It was not immediately obvious who I was sharing the washroom with, nor did it matter to me, but as soon as I finished my business, it became obvious to me that I didn’t want to know.

The woman hadn’t entered a stall, and instead I heard her gagging herself with her finger at the sink. It took a few tries, but I could plainly hear her wide open mouth echoing with the muffled gags behind her fist.

I’m sorry, but if you’ve ever heard someone force herself to vomit before, you know it’s a much different sound than nausea-induced vomiting. This was forced vomiting.

She did not throw up much, which I’m assuming she already knew would occur because she wasn’t puking in the toilet, but the sink. I was sufficiently embarrassed for her that I took my sweet time coming out of the stall, and I gave her ample opportunity to just bolt once she realized she wasn’t alone, but she did not. Instead, she ran the water in the sink and sounded like she was repeatedly washing her hands. At least three separate times I heard the water turn on, the soap dispenser depressed, lathering, rinsing, and toweling off of hands. Repeat. Repeat. When I finally decided I had to emerge from the stall if just because I was tired of giving her opportunities to leave and she wasn’t taking them, I slowly creeped out.

While all this was ongoing, I was imagining who it might be. I had three suspects in my mind and a part of me still did not want to know. Does anyone really want to know that someone they work with is bulimic? What do you do? I sincerely doubt she expected the person in the washroom to be someone on staff, but here I was, about to surprise her. Would she care? What should I say? Should I say anything at all? Maybe she was just not feeling well and trying to void her stomach of whatever was upsetting it.

As I rounded the second stall and the woman in question came into view, I almost gasped. Definitely NOT one of the three I had mentally prepared myself for! I was so taken aback, I said absolutely nothing to her about hearing her force herself to vomit, as she was finishing up washing her hands for a third time, and beginning the fourth.

I smiled and said hello to her, and she smiled and said hello back.

When I approached the sink, I hit the faucet to start the water flow and it only ran for about .75 seconds, which wasn’t even long enough to get my hands under the water. I pushed the lever again and just as my hands got there, the water stopped. The third time I hit it and had one hand under the water, so one hand got wet, but the other was out of luck. I was sufficiently distracted from my bulimic coworker now that I was battling with a stingy faucet.

She laughed at my faucet trouble because she had the working faucet.

Coworker: I don’t like that faucet. I like the one downstairs that comes on when your hands are under it. That one’s nice!

Me: Yes, I like that one too. I should go down there from now on.

We both chuckled. I dried my hands as she started drying hers. As I left the washroom, I held the door for her because I was afraid if I didn’t encourage her to leave with me, she’d either try to throw up again, or wash her hands again, and I wasn’t sure which disturbed me more at that point. She refused to touch the door with her bare hands and used the wet paper towel to handle it, then threw the wet paper towel away in a nearby trashcan outside the washroom. We said good-bye and I couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck was wrong with me that I didn’t ask her if she was okay.

Isn’t it a given that if you hear someone vomiting, even if it’s self-induced, you should probably ask if they’re okay or need help? Particularly if you know that person? Didn’t I just write a long, preachy post about how I cannot just stand idly by when someone is being victimized by someone else, yet here I am seeing someone victimize herself and I can’t even show concern? Clearly, I am a failure as a human.

For the remainder of the day and night, I thought about her. I tried not to because I was ashamed of myself for not talking to her about it, but I was still quite worried. My experience with eating disorders is near nil, and while I understand the fundamentals, that it’s someone trying to have control in their life, that it’s a disease and not a symptom of vanity, I just felt too ill-equipped to say anything. And I can’t help but wonder how many times this has happened before, and if perhaps this is why she doesn’t try to hide it, doesn’t privately go into a stall, doesn’t even seem to care that anyone is aware of it, because no one ever says a damn thing to her about it. How long has she been openly bulimic and no one has ever said a word to her about it?

No one else would suspect it, I’m guessing. She isn’t a classic case, in my opinion. And there is the very strong possibility that I could be wrong and she might have just swallowed a bug.

I know I blew it, but what can I do now? Before any anonymous commenters want to warn me that it’s not my job to save the world again, I should state that I’m not trying to save the world, and I’m not even trying to save any individual. She has a problem that I cannot fix, but at the very least, I’d like her to know that I’d do anything I could to help her or just listen to her talk if she wanted. She matters. She matters to me, and I don’t want to see her in pain, harming herself. And I care. And maybe that’s all I truly have to offer her, but it’s certainly more than I said today. What must she think of the human race if she can force herself to vomit in the sink at her work, and no one ever says anything to her about it? She must feel very alone and very unloved. What if this was a cry for help?

But then again, I don’t know a damn thing about bulimia. Or if she even has bulimia.

It could very well be none of my business, and I’m sure many people, particularly guys, would tell me to back off, but it doesn’t feel like the right thing to do.

I should add that this woman is not one of my closer work buddies, so I don’t even know if anything I say would matter to her.

What should I do?

...FSM Would Smite Them!

Tonight a patron came in and requested a book from another library. Of course it was closing time, but I did it for her anyway. As I took care of this matter for her, she said something to me that really bugs me.

I don’t know much about this woman, and what I do know is not good. She’s a teacher (sigh) who likes to come in and throw her weight around, demanding special service and pitching a rabid fit if she can’t have it. Emphasis on the rabid: we’re talking frothing, snarling, fangy snaps at anyone who gets in her way, and then you have to have horrendous shots in your belly if she gets a hold of you.

Less than what I know about her is what she knows about me, but this did not stop her from telling me I HAD to read a series of romance novels, that I would eat them up, and she was even willing to hand me a copy of the first one she bought for herself, which was in her backseat.

First of all, I’m offended that I appear to be the kind of person who would eat up a cheesy romance novel. I would sooner read a western, and if you know anything about me, you know that’s just not going to happen either. Romance? Um, no. Even the steamy stuff is barf-worthy, and as far as I’m concerned, nothing ruins a good book quicker than throwing in a stupid romantic twist. There’s a reason I like horror novels, but authors like Koontz, who feel the need to always thrust a throbbing, dripping proboscis of romance at me do nothing but make me gag. And I will swear an author off completely if they try to slip a love interest story into a perfectly good thriller. People, we don’t meet the person of our dreams when we are on the run from a pack of serial killers who have combined forces to catch the lead detective after them. No! No love interest! Just no! Why do we feel like we have to inject romance into the most unlikely of novels? I hate it when it sneaks into a book where it doesn’t belong, but there is no fucking way I’m going to read a whole romance book. NO WAY!

No bosoms. No quivering. No lips locking. No half-naked, sweaty men pursuing with stalker-like tenacity. No mustaches. No guys in pirate shirts and girls in petticoats. No vapors. No plantations. No bare-back, horse-riding hos in long skirts. Because OUCH!

Second of all, under no circumstances should a romance reader be so proud of liking a romance book that she would loudly declare her love for it, and then tell someone else they should read it. Get a grip! Your genus of insanity isn’t contagious to me. Enthusiasm doesn’t sell me, and if anything, it’s a deterrent. Chill, bitch, and listen to what you’re saying. It’s a RO-MANCE. By definition it can’t be good. Don’t embarrass yourself further, because we already think you’re a bad addition to the teaching community, but tell me you’re a romance reader and you just started your career in my mental slophouse, cleaning toilets in the hierarchy of humanity. At least tell me you recommend something a little more edgy, a little more imaginative, and a little less like a damn talk show.

Third, don’t pretend like you know me. If you stretched your head or picked up on any kind of social cues, you’d realize that I don’t even like you, and if you recommend something, that’s a guarantee that I’ll likely never read it and probably won’t recommend it to anyone else now, because I won’t want to associate myself with this book in any way. YOU don’t know me. You can’t predict what I’ll enjoy reading. If you did, you’d recommend a David Wiesner or Sams & Stoick book. This is just another example of your extreme self-centeredness, which had sufficient examples long before you made this stupid move. Stick to what you know, which isn’t much, so it shouldn’t be all that difficult.

Yet, no matter how irritated this made me, at least I was not present earlier when someone else came into the library and lectured the librarian about carrying books on evolution, which he said had been disproved, and intelligent design was all we should offer. I’m not sure I could’ve been a dutiful staff member and politely taken such nonsense. I likely would’ve trotted over to the 818s and grabbed Mr. Henderson’s book, quietly reciting from the Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

May a pox of pasta be upon these two.

...Resumes Would All Be This Telling

She’s an R.N.

Granted, she’s looking for a job, but she has the degree and the experience to apply for a job as a nurse anywhere.

And she has no idea how to use a computer, where the keys are on a keyboard, or what a mouse is.

Once I walked her through the very complicated four-step process of clicking and scanning her card that would get her a computer reservation, and she finally managed to input the four-digit reservation number at her assigned computer, I asked her to double-click on the Microsoft Word icon at the top of the desktop.

She asked, “How?”

I said, “With the mouse. Double click, which means click twice in a row, quickly.”

She looked at the mouse and asked, “This thing?”

How can an R.N. have no experience with a computer and not even know what a mouse is?

Her hands had a tremor that had nothing to do with nerves or fear. It could be because she was in her late 40s and something neurological was going on, or she might just be a trembler. I hope she doesn’t wield a needle as a nurse.

She also couldn’t spell some very simple words. I hope she doesn’t chart.

When I showed her how to print the first time, she needed me to walk her through it the second time and then again on the third time. I hope she doesn’t have to administer doctors’ orders.

Her focus was the handful of cards in her purse, which were rubber-banded together, and I could see that the stack included her library card, some business cards, some store membership cards, and credit cards. She did not keep them in her wallet, which she also pulled out of her purse. The wallet was full of coupons and other scraps of paper, plus a secret compartment held her cash and change. In her purse were also multiple bottles of prescription drugs. It’s funny how focused she was on the band of cards, but she left that open purse in a variety of places between her computer and the printer. I hope she doesn’t have access to the meds.

She was applying for a job at a hospital I go to, and what she typed up was supposed to be a resume, but she typed it up in a letter format. I asked if it was a cover letter for a resume, and she said no. Part of me wanted to step in and explain that resumes aren’t letters, but another part of me thought about how telling this submission would be. Many incompetent people have competent friends or perhaps some kind of vocational coach who help them polish up a beautiful resume, which sells that person as a true winner, but they actually cannot read. Who am I to enter into that kind of fraud against the rest of the world? Oh no. If this woman wanted to submit a letter-formatted resume, so be it. Because if I end up in this hospital and she’s the one taking care of me, unless I’m paralyzed and cannot demand that someone else take care of me, there is no way I was going to allow her near me.

After printing the third copy and making the final changes to the finished product, I walked her through clicking “that thing” on File, then Print and sending it to the printer, and I had to verbally instruct her to walk over to the printer to pay for the pages, because after three previous trips to the printer, she actually looked around the computer to see if the page had come out under the table, or around behind the monitor.

I can’t even fathom a medical office or facility that doesn’t have some kind of computer somewhere, where this woman could have been working as a nurse for the last 20 years and never used a mouse. Part of me is a little proud to meet someone with a degree, someone who considers herself a marketable nurse, who has succeeded in avoiding computers for decades, and only now that she has poorly written a letter-format resume has she had to make physical contact with a mouse. It’s as if I was present for a historic moment in her life. And another part of me felt scared that this revelation did not illuminate to her how poorly prepared she was for the working world. I suppose that will come with the lack of response to her resume.

Unless it doesn’t.

And then there is a revelation in store for me.

...I Wouldn't Have To Defend Defending Underdogs

I will always defend the underdog. My hard wiring is made up of circuits that light up and spark when I think someone is being oppressed, taken advantage of, used, abused, or otherwise mistreated. Nothing infuriates me more than someone in a position of power or authority hurting someone who isn’t.

For some times during most of my childhood, my father was violent and verbally abusive. I never had bruises, a fat lip, black eye or a broken bone, but I was familiar with spankings, being whipped with a belt, or being slapped around. Those instances usually happened after an hour or so of being screamed at and put down, told to take the abuse without crying or he’d hit me, and as soon as I burst into tears, the entire event would escalate and I’d get hit. Sometimes I’d cry early on and get the physical part over with so he would just send me to my room, but sometimes that backfired and I still had to endure the verbal abuse before I was told to get out of his face. These events were not common, but when they happened, I struggled navigating where his temper would take it, and it seldom traveled down the same road twice.

My brother got it worse because he was a boy and my dad tried to teach him the macho ways of not crying and not showing weakness. If he cried, my father would say he was going to go out and buy a dress for my brother, make him wear it, and parade him up and down the street for all his friends to see him as the little girl he truly was. These days, my brother is a completely nonfunctional adult, 30 years old, unemployed, incapable of holding a job, balancing a checkbook, or taking any kind of responsibility in his life. My mom hardly can support the two of them on her meager Disability check, which she stretches to cover both their living expenses. My brother is one of the smartest people I know, and his interests are in advanced mathematics and art, but he has so little confidence and such low self esteem, even now he can’t face himself in the mirror and come out of his room most days.

I fared much better, but I have my own scars to bear. And as I got older, I confronted my father more, fought back, and at some point, I don’t remember when, I learned to out-insult him, and it wasn’t long before I was making my dad cry instead of the other way around. It was only through this process that I was able to forgive him, because somehow I realized that he might have been the strongest, bravest man I knew, but deep down he was a quivering, gelatinous mass of goo. Just like me. Just like he made me. And so to make peace with myself, I had to make peace with him. I did. And the last 10 years of his life, we were quite close.

In no way was my childhood made up entirely of this kind of abuse. It was mostly a normal childhood, full of happiness, learning, confusion, emotion and discovery. But anytime I stepped out of the bounds of what I knew, I didn’t know how to handle it because I didn’t know what would set my dad off. My father only had abusive moments a few times a year, and while I didn’t think of him as a bad guy, the impact was still huge. Most of my life was happy, but the bad times marred the good times in ways I never recognized.

I discovered early on that I was different, and no one seemed to care. From a very young age, I suffered from selective mutism, which is a rare psychological disorder where a child will be completely mute, exhibit all the symptoms of being absolutely incapable of speech in certain environments, and then speak normally in other environments. Before I went to school, I was mute around men. I would not speak, no matter how much people tried to make me, what tricks they used, or what threats they made. But away from men, I could talk. I also clammed up at school and wouldn’t talk. At all. Ever. It was only after some intensive work with my parents that I finally started talking at school, and that took a lot of time. If I’d had a male teacher, it likely would’ve resulted in me running away and living out of a dumpster...at five years old. Even afterwards I started talking at school, I only talked the bare minimum, and when I was around any man, I reverted back to being mute. In fact, I was so afraid of men that I would make my mom call ahead to the homes of my friends to find out if their fathers were home, because I would not visit if there was a man in the house. This extended to my relatives as well. I thought all men were like my dad, and I couldn’t deal with the idea of being humiliated and yelled at by someone else’s dad.

No one ever asked me what was wrong or were there problems at home. No one ever defended me when he was on a rampage. No one ever helped me. No one even seemed to notice. In my family, my mom and brother only seemed to be grateful that this time it wasn’t aimed at them. And I can’t say that I felt much different when he was on someone else’s case.

Yet, despite this all, he was the one I loved the most. I was a daddy’s girl, always looking for his approval, always seeking his attention, and always wanting to please him. Even when I hated him, I knew that no one loved me more than he did. It’s a fucked up way for a girl to grow up, and I’m very lucky I’m not married to a man who punches my face in daily, but like I said, he and I worked it all out.

My mother, on the other hand, is the one I blame. The whole myth about mothers being these sentient martyrs, who know when their child is hurt without actually knowing, who would lay down their lives to save their babies, was never more untrue than with my mother. She sacrificed me to save herself all the time, and I can vividly remember having an argument with her when I was about 12, that resulted in both of us locking ourselves in our rooms in anger. When my dad got home, she immediately went to him and told him a completely fabricated version of what occurred, so that when he asked me what happened and I told him the truth, he became infuriated that I told a different story than my mother. Her story was not even close to being true. She made stuff up that left me reeling! He asked me in a furiously challenging tone if I was calling my mother a liar, and I panicked and said absolutely not, but I could only tell him the truth as I knew it to be. He said my contradiction was the same as calling my mother a liar, and he smacked me across the face so hard that it knocked me off my feet and I fell to the floor. I should add that I reached my full height when I was about 13, and he and I were eye-to-eye, so for him to slap me and knock me to the ground like that probably came very close to doing some serious facial damage to me. All because my mom lied to punish me and he believed her. There can never be an understanding or forgiveness between her and me because there is nothing in her that I recognize in myself or want to integrate. I’m perfectly happy with her eternally playing the anti-hero in my life.

So, when I found my voice and I started fighting back, I also started fighting back for all the oppressed people I knew. To sit idly by and allow someone else to feel the kind of pain and humiliation I felt, I just can’t do. Often times I don’t know when to stop and I take things too far when trying to defend someone who is being bullied. I don’t cozy up to people in power very often, and usually if I do, it’s only a matter of time before they start throwing their weight around and I instinctively take the side of the victims. Particularly if the victim hasn’t found his/her voice yet.

While I’m not a huge fan of children and I would probably be a miserable mother if I were ever forced into motherhood, I am particularly defensive of children being bullied. Whether by other children, siblings or adults, a light goes on inside me and I think of all the times when I was in a public place, like a doctor’s office or a family gathering, and my dad lit into me so harshly that people looked away in shame for being witnesses to his awful words, all he had to do was pretend to take his belt off and I would curl up into a ball and promise to be a good girl -- and no one ever came to my aid. No one. I think about that feeling, that utter terror and helplessness when the people who are supposed to protect you are responsible for your suffering, and no one else cares enough to help you. These are deeply buried feelings I have, but all I have to see is one little girl get smacked across the face by parent, even if it’s a relatively light smack, and suddenly I am that little girl and I am her protector all at once. Even if it does no real good, and even if that mother hits the girl 10 more times because I said something about it, I could easily be a person who will stand out in this little girl’s sad life and be one of the few who dared to care and spoke up to say that what was happening was wrong. Sometimes I think that’s all I might have needed to get through it myself, because if no one said what he was doing was wrong, then that stands to reason that he was right, and I was a worthless little shit who should be treated this way. It’s one thing to be told you’re a worthless child, but it’s another to actually believe it. And if no one contradicts the claim, it becomes true in a child’s mind.

Yes, I did react strongly and write a nasty post about the step-father yesterday, who said to someone else’s kid that if she was his, he’d fucking kill her, and this was after yelling and swearing at her for a while, too. Thankfully someone on staff was smart enough to remove the bawling little girl from the scene and try to comfort her away from the mean stranger. Someone who I know probably felt the same way that I do, and for much the same reason.

Maybe many of the people who read that post didn’t see the true harm in an adult saying those types of things to kids, largely because those of us who deal with children on a regular basis are a bit jaded from the parental apathy and lack of discipline in families today, and maybe a few of you wondered if this was a step-father in an unfamiliar situation, reacting with fury and a momentary lack of control, which we are all capable of. Maybe we’ve become so numb to insults and hurtful words that they don’t mean anything to us anymore. Maybe we were wise enough to realize that the man would more than probably not have literally killed the girl if she was his daughter, and these were just words spoken in anger. But that scares me more. Because most people don’t know what it’s like to be terrorized by an adult, and most women don’t remember what it’s like to be an eleven-year-old girl. It scares me that there are people who read my post and identified more closely with the asshole step-father than the frightened little girl. That little girl damaged library property, yes. She lied about it and tried to hide it. Yes, all of that was true. But she was only eleven years old! Think about that for a second.

Eleven-year-olds are likely facing the beginnings of puberty, which is horrifying in and of itself. Plus they’ve hit that stage that I talked about in a recent post where they can’t communicate anymore with the rest of the world. It’s like their vocabulary got flushed right out of their brains and any thoughts or opinions they have don’t have any way of coming out of them. They’re in fifth or sixth grade, and all their little immature brains can do is concentrate on school for just an hour or two before needing a recess to run around outside and hang upside down from monkey bars. They still hate vegetables. Maybe they’ve recognized the appeal of the opposite sex (or the same sex, whatever their preference), but they are so young and undeveloped, they have no idea what to do with those feelings. They look up to pimply dorks in seventh grade, who are so gawky and awkward, they are the truest ugly ducklings in nature that I’ve ever known. They don’t know the first thing about the Constitution yet, and their concept of right and wrong comes from strict rules and consequences, and not much empathy. The only poems they’ve ever read rhyme in simple schemes. They’re so young that Princess Diana and Chris Farley have always been dead to them. They still color in coloring books. They don’t know or care if their clothes match. They were not alive pre-Harry Potter. They still pick their nose with impunity and have no real sense of urgency to bathe daily. They have only eleven years of experience in the world and right now they’re more confused and more insecure than they have ever been before. All they want is to be accepted, to blend in, to catch up to everyone else who remotely seems to have a smidgen more confidence and security than they do, and often they make bad decisions. Often they do wrong things. Often they make mistakes. Often they get in trouble. The trick to raising kids correctly is to help them understand why something is wrong, and to help them do whatever they can to make it right. Sometimes that isn’t possible, but understanding that bad decisions can hurt people or things is essential. These kids are not equipped with the kind of maturity and understanding to legally be left alone without adult supervision for more than an hour or two at a time. Even the law recognizes that kids this age who do bad things are not fully aware of the implications of their actions, and they cannot be completely held responsible.

Does everyone understand what 11 years old is? Do you remember anything from being that age? Do you remember all the stupid shit you did, which you knew better than to do, but you did anyway because you were only ELEVEN FUCKING YEARS OLD? How many of you made a mistake that resulted in getting caught and your parents getting a call to come and get you? Probably a quite a lot. How many times did this also include the police? Maybe a few of us had this experience. How about having absentee parents who could not be reached or come to your aid, so DCFS had to be called in? Hmm, I bet there aren’t many of you who’ve been there. How about an occasion in your life when you did something bad, something you knew was bad, but no one got hurt and you eventually fessed up, only to have parents called, police called, DCFS called, and a HUGE TO-DO made about it all, legitimately so, and to cap it all off, your best friend’s father comes in and tells you you’re worthless, a bad person, not welcome in his home, not allowed around his daughter (your best friend), and then he tells you he’d fucking kill you if he was your dad? Hmm, that ever happen to any of you? And if it did, did a handful of adults stand around and allow it?

I certainly hope not.

But even if we know that this guy wasn’t going to kill this girl, she’s gotta be thinking that someone is going to kill her for this, because if her friend’s dad thinks this, and no one says anything, then everyone is thinking in agreement.

And then she starts believing it.

And now, instead of having two little girls who love animals so much that they tried to steal pages of cute and fuzzy bears and dogs out of library books, we’ve got a fucked-up little 11-year-old who is starting to believe she is nothing but a no-good trouble-maker who should be kept away from the good kids, perhaps locked up, perhaps taken away from her mother, and maybe she even believes the literal words of this man, who was not contradicted by anyone when he said he would kill her if he could have.

Personally, I don’t care how much this costs the parents and I don’t care if they pay it. They’re just books.

What matters are the lives that are forever altered, forever impacted by this event, where two little girls screwed up, but the adults failed them on a colossal level. Whether you believe in spanking kids or not, at no point should a punishment include morbid humiliation and talk of death to a child.

In ten years, when this little girl gets out of prison, after transferring from juvenile detention, where she probably will spend most of her teen and early adult years, predictably on drugs, with absolutely no self worth at all, possibly with illegitimate children taken from her, and she’s unleashed on society with the same maturity she has on this very day, compounded with addiction and a bone to pick with society, if you ask her how she got there, I bet she will clearly remember this incident as a turning point in her life, if not a huge factor that drove her into a world of spiraling indifference toward her own survival.

Or maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere will speak up for her, tell her she’s done wrong but she isn’t a bad person, and build her up to be something no one ever told her she could be: worthy of love.

Children have so few life lessons under their belts, so few experiences to draw from that one terrible experience can tip the scales so dramatically, it seems to them that they cannot possibly tip it back the other way. Consider how they overreact to every little thing that happens. Extrapolate from that the effect of this encounter.

Sometimes I use what my father gave me, and I’m so aggressive and mean, I hurl verbal javelins at people and I attack with such ferocity that often I am accused of being a bitch. An evil bitch. Or worse. However, I guarantee that the only times I react in such a way is when I see someone being hurt by another. It’s not Momma Bear, and it’s not a need to be a superhero. I’m merely trying to right what was wrong in my life, and prevent as many people as possible from feeling that level of helplessness, loneliness, and pain. If I stand around and allow someone to suffer at the hands of another, I become my mother. And anyone else who does nothing becomes my mother, too.

So if I come down hard on abusive people (or people who defend abusive people), it’s because I perceive that they deserve it, and also because I automatically empathize with the person on the receiving end.

Because I am that person. Both now and 24 years ago.

And I still want to help me because a part of me thinks no one else will.

And mostly, no one else does.