04-27-2012, 06:03 PM
I’m headed to the Mountain View Library after receiving notification that the DVD I requested through Link+ (interlibrary loan) is in. It’s a Mexican movie called Aventurera that came out in 1950. The Mountain View Library actually has a copy of it, but the last section of the DVD wouldn’t play for me. Many of the DVDs I get from the library are problematic. What are people doing with them? Using them for coasters? Playing Frisbee with them in the parking lot? Shimming up table legs with them? Anyway, I’m determined to see the ending of Aventurera, so I requested a copy from Sacramento, and soon I will have it in hand.
I stop at a Safeway to buy a get-well card. One of the guys I used to work with suffered a very serious back injury. It happened while he was playing with his granddaughter. I don’t know the details, but rumor has it that a pogo stick was involved. Some people might blame him for not being careful enough. I blame the granddaughter. Kids are evil. I’m reminded of that every time I go back to Indiana. “Uncle Cranefly, I bet you can’t climb that tree.” “Uncle Cranefly, show us how to jump over that fence.” “Uncle Cranefly, can you go all the way around on the swing?” “Hee hee, Uncle Cranefly, your arm is bent funny.” I'm telling you. Kids are evil.
So I mail the get-well card and head onward to the library. I’m returning a DVD as well a picking one up, so inside I head to the check-in conveyor. There's a line. There’s never a line, but this time there is. Five people. At the front of the line is a woman with her 4-year-old daughter. They’ve got a stroller full of books and DVDs. Mommy is letting her little darling check everything in. “No, honey, it didn’t take the last one. Pull it out and try again. No, you can’t get a receipt yet. You need to hit that button. No, the other one. Now put the DVD in. Turn it the other way.” I reach forward and brush a cobweb off the lady standing in front of me. She thanks me. I notice that the guy in front of her is on the last 20 pages of War and Peace. I don’t have anything to read, so I start counting. One, two, three.... “No, honey. You have to start over now. The window closed. Hold the book over there to make it open.” I’m up in the 6 trillions when the woman and her daughter finally finish. The four other people ahead of me rapidly finish their check-ins. I time my check-in at two-point-three seconds.
Okay, so now it’s over to the help desk to pick up the DVD. There’s two people ahead of me. Thankfully no kids. Because kids are evil. Evil evil evil. It doesn’t take long for the lady to take care of the two people ahead of me, just minor problems with their cards. The lady is just starting to wave me forward when she suddenly turns toward the door and calls, “Lady, you have to come back!” I see a woman heading out the door with two kids. Another worker goes after them and escorts them back inside. They are directed to the lady who was about to help me.
“You set off the alarm,” she tells the mother. “One of your items isn’t checked out.” And she asks for her card. I now see that her two kids each has a stack of ten books, and the woman has maybe 8 DVDs. The lady runs the card and is trying to compare the check-out list on the monitor against what the three of them have. Of course, the kids are grabbing up their books and wandering off, and the mother is spacing out and not being very helpful-- “This one isn’t checked out,” the lady says, handing the book and card to the mother. “You need to check it out.” And she points to the self-checkout machine. But then, comparing further, she says in dismay, “There’s several items that aren’t checked out. You didn’t check out all of this stuff.”
And so it goes, the lady trying to get the mother to round up the kids and their books and finish comparing and checking everything out -- and finally a man comes out from the back and opens another window and waves me forward. Within 30 seconds I’ve got the DVD in hand and am heading out the door.
As I’m leaving, a girl comes skipping up the steps. “Oops!” she says, and I watch as a DVD sails out of the case she’s carrying to skitter across the sidewalk and land in the gravel around a tree.
You can bet I slapped her good.
Kids are evil, I’m telling you. Evil, evil, evil.
Finally I'm back home, triple-locking the door after me, relieved to be safe once more. I gently place the DVD aside for later viewing and plop down in front of my computer. I need to get back to work on Woobie and the Weaverbirds, the sequel to Piko the Penguinaut.
I stop at a Safeway to buy a get-well card. One of the guys I used to work with suffered a very serious back injury. It happened while he was playing with his granddaughter. I don’t know the details, but rumor has it that a pogo stick was involved. Some people might blame him for not being careful enough. I blame the granddaughter. Kids are evil. I’m reminded of that every time I go back to Indiana. “Uncle Cranefly, I bet you can’t climb that tree.” “Uncle Cranefly, show us how to jump over that fence.” “Uncle Cranefly, can you go all the way around on the swing?” “Hee hee, Uncle Cranefly, your arm is bent funny.” I'm telling you. Kids are evil.
So I mail the get-well card and head onward to the library. I’m returning a DVD as well a picking one up, so inside I head to the check-in conveyor. There's a line. There’s never a line, but this time there is. Five people. At the front of the line is a woman with her 4-year-old daughter. They’ve got a stroller full of books and DVDs. Mommy is letting her little darling check everything in. “No, honey, it didn’t take the last one. Pull it out and try again. No, you can’t get a receipt yet. You need to hit that button. No, the other one. Now put the DVD in. Turn it the other way.” I reach forward and brush a cobweb off the lady standing in front of me. She thanks me. I notice that the guy in front of her is on the last 20 pages of War and Peace. I don’t have anything to read, so I start counting. One, two, three.... “No, honey. You have to start over now. The window closed. Hold the book over there to make it open.” I’m up in the 6 trillions when the woman and her daughter finally finish. The four other people ahead of me rapidly finish their check-ins. I time my check-in at two-point-three seconds.
Okay, so now it’s over to the help desk to pick up the DVD. There’s two people ahead of me. Thankfully no kids. Because kids are evil. Evil evil evil. It doesn’t take long for the lady to take care of the two people ahead of me, just minor problems with their cards. The lady is just starting to wave me forward when she suddenly turns toward the door and calls, “Lady, you have to come back!” I see a woman heading out the door with two kids. Another worker goes after them and escorts them back inside. They are directed to the lady who was about to help me.
“You set off the alarm,” she tells the mother. “One of your items isn’t checked out.” And she asks for her card. I now see that her two kids each has a stack of ten books, and the woman has maybe 8 DVDs. The lady runs the card and is trying to compare the check-out list on the monitor against what the three of them have. Of course, the kids are grabbing up their books and wandering off, and the mother is spacing out and not being very helpful-- “This one isn’t checked out,” the lady says, handing the book and card to the mother. “You need to check it out.” And she points to the self-checkout machine. But then, comparing further, she says in dismay, “There’s several items that aren’t checked out. You didn’t check out all of this stuff.”
And so it goes, the lady trying to get the mother to round up the kids and their books and finish comparing and checking everything out -- and finally a man comes out from the back and opens another window and waves me forward. Within 30 seconds I’ve got the DVD in hand and am heading out the door.
As I’m leaving, a girl comes skipping up the steps. “Oops!” she says, and I watch as a DVD sails out of the case she’s carrying to skitter across the sidewalk and land in the gravel around a tree.
You can bet I slapped her good.
Kids are evil, I’m telling you. Evil, evil, evil.
Finally I'm back home, triple-locking the door after me, relieved to be safe once more. I gently place the DVD aside for later viewing and plop down in front of my computer. I need to get back to work on Woobie and the Weaverbirds, the sequel to Piko the Penguinaut.
I'm nobody's pony.
