The F-Bomb Boy
Shhh! You can't say that here!
Being a librarian is a constant learning experience, and not for the reasons one might think. I would love to spend countless hours bathing my conscious in the soothing balm that flows from the pages of written word, but that is a scenario that I have yet to experience at my place of employment.
More often than not, the lessons that I glean come from the area of interpersonal interactions. There needs to be a disclaimer at this part of the story, I am not one of those stereotypical, mousy; introverted librarians. I grew up with an attention seeking, extroverted creature of Michael Scott proportions. This is not an exaggeration. So, while I would rather be stretched out on a blanket, alone in the woods reading a book; it could be said that I am comfortable in a social setting. Thanks Dad!
Returning to interpersonal interactions. All kinds of people cast their personality beam upon us at the library. You have the man that prints pictures of mountains. Pages upon pages of mountains have spewed out of our laser printer, for years and years. Our front counter upholds the overly friendly inebriated souls. Little old ladies that like to wax poetic about how attractive you are to the entire library while you help them log on to the Internet are always fun (This happened to me yesterday, I made a note to wear less eye makeup), and let's not forget the ever fun unclogging of the men's toilet chore. Deuce I Don't Defecate At Home loves to visit every day after-school. I would really love to have a chat with him about the proper amount of toilet paper to utilize. That would be after I brandish the plunger in an emphasizing manner towards his timely elimating form. Who am I kidding, at this point I would love to throw it at him.
Yesterday's human encounter was one of the top ten in my ongoing catalog of human experiences: The F-bomb Boy.
I was helping teach an after-school painting class in our meeting room with our Youth Services saint, Miss M. I needed to step back into the main part of the library to get a form that we needed to fill out when I heard what sounded like a crack-addled chipmunk hollering: F@#$, F@$%, F#@%, over and over again.
There were three young boys, probably around 8 or 9 coming in the front door, and as I looked at bilge-mouthed creature uttering the expletive I found myself uttering the clarification question that most adults have at one time asked: "What did you say?"
The sandy-brown haired, cherub-faced; sewer-mouthed creature looked up at me and smiled. As he did so he said, "F#$%" with perfect elocution. Professor Henry Higgins would have been proud.
This creature is far cleaner than that kid's mouth
"That's what I thought you said," I replied with an impressive amount of stoic resolve.
"You know that you can't be yelling that particular word or any other profane word at the library, right?" I order-queried.
"Well, he was yelling it at a lady in the parking lot, is that okay?" one of his cohorts quipped in reply.
"The parking lot is part of the library, so that would be a no on the yelling of the F-word anywhere that is part of the library." I replied patiently.
Ol Coitus Mouth peered up me and responded, "But I like saying F#$%!"
"Unfortunately, if you continue to say it, I am going to have to call your mother to come collect you. So you need to stop."
"Okay." The foul-mouthed, precocious youth bubbly replied as he went along on his way.
We, of course had to call his mother, for we had another incident with our dung-spewing friend, and she was mortified that he was wandering around ejecting the F-word into the public sphere.
"We don't even use that word in this house!" She exclaimed.
I just found myself thankful that there wasn't a Grandma around, or I would have been filling out two incident reports yesterday.
And as always, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's sparkling clean iPhone.