Foxylibrarian.com

I had to get a little iron fisted with the computer boyz in the children's section the other day. They are in here from the moment we open until the computers shut off fifteen minutes before we close, meaning sometimes they'll be at the computers for 11 hours at a stretch. Since they spend their day cooped up inside playing computer games that exercise nothing but their hands, they get, unsurprisingly, rowdy and disruptive. Sometimes going beserker on them is the only way to reach them and keep them in line.

I think they are already a little frightened of me since they witnessed an incident involving a little boy about six months ago. This little boy is a real brat with indulgent, older parents who think everything he does, not matter how obnoxious, is absolutely adorable. Whether he's tearing around the library getting dangerously underfoot, sassing the librarians when they try to reign him in, or throwing a tantrum because we don't have a certain video or it's time to leave, his parents just chuckle indulgently while I dig my nails into my hands and the other adult patrons glare at me to do something. One time he came running in, and after I stopped him and asked him not to run in the library he reached over and maliciously turned my computer off, destroying an e-mail that I had put a lot of thought and care into. He then ran off. Furious, I followed him to the children's section. He then came barrelling out from behind a bookshelf, his arms full of videos, yelling greedily,

"Look, look, I got the last TWO Arthur videos! And they're all mine!"

He then tripped and fell flat on his face right in front of the children's computers, scattering the videos all of the floor, unhurt but stunned. Of course I burst out laughing, and the computer kidz looked at me wide-eyed, amazed that an adult, someone in a position of authority, could be that immature and petty. Even if I'm going to burn in hell for that, it was deeply satisfying thing for me to see.