On Thursday, the children’s librarian was waxing philosophical. “I just spent the last 1 1/2 hours cleaning the vomit off of each individual monkey in the barrel,” she said. She then looked at me, piercingly. “Your day is coming. Mark my words.”
So these are the events of the day-to-day in a public library: children puke into the Barrel of Monkeys game. Fat bald men whack off in front of the computers. Hordes of teenagers float from one end of the library to another, screaming. Did I also mention that in the past few months, we’ve found two incidences of people urinating on the chairs (strangely enough, NOT in the children’s section)? Additionally, I have encountered more bearded ladies than I ever thought existed. These are seriously bearded ladies: mustache, the occasional flavor-saver, muttonchops, what have you.
I have nothing against them, of course, I just find them FASCINATING in a probably very un-PC and un-Public-Servant-ish way. But more to the point, IS my day coming? Am I doomed to cleaning vomit, calling 911 (actually, I’ve already done this twice), and listening to parents bitch about their kids’ homework?
Nooo.
Friday, I accepted UCLA’s PhD offer. Come September, I’ll be living in Westwood, back in class, safe in the ivory tower of academia from all the monkeys in a barrel that the world can throw at me. Today I’m turning in my resignation letter; I am feeling strangely buoyed.
