Monsters Under the Bed

I had a "monsters" storytime this week. After I read a story about a little monster who has humans under his bed I asked the kids "Do any of you have monsters under your bed?" I didn't expect a response but several hands shot up in the air, "I do, I do! Me, me!" They were so excited to have monsters under their beds. I guess their monsters weren't that scary.

I also read a book about 10 things to do with your monster. Among the activities to do with your scaled or slimy friend were living next to a pet store because monsters eat lots of food and never naming your monster Fluffy. (It suggested you name your monster Bob or Biff.) After the storytime we made monster faces with paper plates, tissue paper and other various odds and ends. I asked a child what he was going to name his monster and he said (in complete seriousness) "I'm not going to name him Fluffy!"

Sick Story

I've stayed home from work today. This is thanks to my wonderful husband who has been sick for a month yet refuses to go to a doctor. (Typical male.) I felt sick the other week but got over it but then it came back with a vengeance yesterday afternoon. My throat got sore, I started sneezing and my nose turned into a faucet. I would just be sitting there typing at the computer when drops of snot would roll out of my nose at indiscriminate times. Very nasty.

At one point in the afternoon a patron called me over to help her with the computer. I leaned over her shoulder to look at the computer and then suddenly a big droplet of snot fell out of my nose and dropped onto her pants leg. I held my breath in shock. What do I do? I was presented with two options: a. Apologize profusely for my bodily fluids falling on her or b. Pretend it never happened

I took the coward's way out. After a millisecond pause I pointed at the screen. "Click on that there to save it," I said and then walked away. I do not know if that woman noticed the snot on her leg. I pray she didn't but I'm not sure since that was the last time she asked for help from me.

Four Little Words

I am turning into my parents.

The other day there were a group of rowdy teens who needed to be shown the door. I approached them and told them to leave the library and welcomed them to come back the next day. Of course, teens want to know WHY they're being punished so they questioned me "Why are we being kicked out?" I answered the way my parents would always say "Because I said so."

The most infuriating four words a teen can hear is "Because I said so." This is because those words leave no room for argument. The adult's word is law and there will be no debate. Teens love to debate and if they can get you to explain why they're being disciplined they will try a weasel a way out of the punishment any way they can.

I heard those four little words frequently as a teen and they made me want to bash my head against a wall. Now here I am using them against others. I have truly joined the ranks of uncool adulthood.

Sushi!

Last week for my anime club I brought in a professional Japanese sushi chef to demonstrate to the teens how to make sushi. He made cucumber rolls, California rolls, hand rolls and there was something else that I can't pronounce or spell if you paid me. Sushi is not something everyone likes, it's kind of an acquired taste. However, these teens gobbled up roll after roll of it.

I'm glad they enjoyed the sushi. It's good to expose the teens to something other than cheeseburgers, Red Bull and those flaming hot Cheetos (where they come in and spread Cheeto dust everywhere.) It was also fascinating watching the chef roll the sushi in his special bamboo mat. Making sushi truly is an art. I just hope the teens don't expect me to feed them like this all the time. I already had a teen ask me the other week for a cheeseburger...

Roaming 'Rovers'

Over the past two weeks we've had two stray dogs roam right into the doors of our library. The first time I saw one it took a second to register that the mass of fur jogging among the stacks was not an unshaven patron but was a four legged animal.

Having a dog inside the library excites the teens who immediately adopt the dog as their own and want to start petting it. I'm sure some of these teens would pet every stray dog they saw even if it was foaming at the mouth.

The first dog was caught by our security officer who leashed it to the bench outside the front doors amassing a crowd before animal control arrived. The second dog was much smaller and cuter. It was a tiny brown chihuahua who wandered behind the reference desk and growled at us whenever we approached. We barricaded the entrance of the reference desk with trash cans so he wouldn't escape and prayed he wouldn't use the bathroom. The little guy was rescued by animal control soon after.

One staff member suggested we keep the chihuahua as a pet but after all this I have learned that you can't get any work done with a dog in the library.

Library Daycare

Our library is many of our patron's own personal, free, daycare center. Why pay childcare when your child can go to the library for free and stay until you feel like picking them up?

For the past two weeks on Friday night there have been packs of children left stranded when we close at six pm. Last week there were two ten year olds who were at the library for 4-5 hours and told me that their parents worked and could not pick them up. When I inquired how they would get home they said they would walk but that it was far.

This week there was a larger group of a 7, 8, 5 and I believe a four year old who were left at the library for 3-4 hours with no adult supervision. As kids are wont to do, they were destructive and left the toddler books in complete disarray. When the library closed at six pm there was no adult coming to pick up this group of children. I asked when their parents would pick them up and they said it would be any minute. Six o'clock came and went, the staff was getting ready to go. I told the staff I would give it one more minute and then I was calling the sheriff. Just then the pack of kids darted out the door and ran off. I called after them and they yelled at me that they would walk home. Then they continued to run down the street, four year old in tow.

What do you do in a situation like that?

Food Coloring Faux Pas

Last year I had a craft with food coloring. At storytime we made marshmallow snowmen and decorated their faces with black food coloring. All was going well with this cute, sugary snowmen and the kids really enjoyed it. Then came the teens. Later that afternoon I had some supplies left over for teens to make snowmen, big mistake. The three year olds could handle the food coloring but with the teens the food coloring promptly was spilled all over the carpet. Black food coloring does not come out of carpet.

So I decided to use food coloring again in a storytime craft. You take food coloring and put dots of it on paper, fold the paper over and then get a colorful Rorschach design. It was for our 'Colors' storytime and the kids really liked it. I wasn't thinking and I didn't put anything down underneath the paper, I thought the food coloring would easily come out of the table. Turns out I was right, with the exception of pink food coloring. For some reason every color comes out of tabletops except for bright pink colors. Now there are little pink droplets on the tables. You think I would have learned my lesson the first time. The allure of food coloring was just too much.

Gorilla in the Room

Last week our children's computer was stolen. Someone simply walked through the door, unhooked the computer from the monitor and idly sauntered out the front door. Our security cameras were not aimed at the children's computers and no one on the staff remembers seeing anyone walking out with a computer.

I believe that we at the library get so used to people walking in and out of the door, carrying things, talking, asking for things etc that it would be simple if someone acted casual and simply walked out of the door like he owned the computer. Patrons would simply think he was a tech person and ignore the situation. Society gets so used to ignoring the scene around them that it takes some highly unusual disturbance to shake them out of their day to day goings on. And sometimes even that is not enough...

I heard on a talk show that people are so oblivious to the world around them that when they did a test with random subjects and put a gorilla in a normal room full of everyday things ten percent of people did not notice the gorilla. The speaker on the show said these ten percent are those that do not survive disasters.