When in
high school I also worked in a
village public library.
Since I was hired by my
mother's
best friend I had to be a bit more cautious in planning my escapes from responsibility. Fortunately the "new" library (completed in
1973) was designed for efficiency. The
basement, in particular, became both the preferred
butt break place and the place where the
janitor chilled out when he should have been cleaning out the
HVAC system.
My usual job
after school was to reshelve
non-fiction books. After working for a hour I would find a book I liked and head on over to either one of two
hiding places.
One hiding place was a series of
steel cages on the top floor for records and
periodicals. Unfortunately this part of the level opened up into a vast open space through which my
boss could monitor us. Needless to say we
student employees would only sit up there in the last hour of work.
Better yet was one of the vast
store rooms down in the basement. Here young workers could read
risque material or just sit, glazed, looking at the
ceiling while on a supposed
lunch break. One hapless young man who had been suspected of being a
homosexual was found reading a book about
Attic Greek sexual practices. Found opened to a
photo of a
tutor and his
charge on a
vase, he shouted loudly, past the
cinder blocks it seems:
"I'M NOT GAY! I JUST LIKE LOOKING AT THESE BOOKS!"
Perhaps he was just into
art.
Kids are cruel.
The best activity was working the
young adult parties. While the melodious sounds of
Vanilla Ice and
New Kids on the Block floated through the basement from the
conference hall, the "
bouncer" and I would sit in the storeroom, smoke some butts, and then serve
shitty off brand soda to
flocks of
13 year olds who merely circulated around the room in
chaotic motion rather than dance.
The worse part of this crappy
dances were these kids who would invade our
sanctum. Then our boss would come in, see us just sitting there, giving us this look. I'm glad she didn't come in when we were
smoking.