My job, sometimes

Things that happened at the library today:

1. I unintentionally befriended a lady who comes in every single day, sometimes more than once a day, and now she will not stop talking to me. Today she talked and talked and talked about her children and her grandchildren and her hair and how she's totally an introvert, and all the while, i was trying to put books on shelves, so i'd go down an aisle to shelve something, and she'd keep talking, so i either had to stop and go back out so that i could hear her and not be rude, or i could just be rude and ignore her. And THIS is why i generally don't say much to patrons beyond, "Hi!"

2. The YMCA brought a giant group of little kids into the library for 30-45 minutes, and they were not overly loud or obnoxious or anything, so that was lovely, but i figured that there was really no point in my shelving anything in there until they left, because i'd just have to go back through and clean it all up again anyhow. And OH MY GOSH, i totally had to clean up after them. They managed to make a ridiculous disaster of the shelves - books put in backwards and lying in piles and just tossed about.

So as i was straightening that up, this small girl child (maybe 2-3 years old) was there with her sister and her mother, and she had the absolutely most piercing scream i think i've ever heard. And she made use of it repeatedly. Even the teen who comes almost every day for the entire day and sits in the corner looking at the internet, oblivious to every single thing around him, even when it's crazy, totally looked up when she screamed. And that's saying something.

3. But the most notable thing from today was totally the possibly used condom that i found tucked away in the middle of a Pokemon graphic novel in the kids' area. I was putting the books all back onto the shelves in order, and the very top (open) end was just barely peeking out of the top, except it was green so i didn't know what it was, so i started pulling it out before i realized what it was. I mostly calmly brought it to the front desk to ask the librarian what we should do with THAT situation, and she was all, "Well. THAT'S a new one." And then i washed my hands obsessively for the next hour. (Or maybe less. But seriously...EW.) (Incidentally, we all agreed that THAT book was going to have to be taken out of circulation, because there was no cleaning that was going to be good enough. Ever.) (Except that SHE got to wear gloves as she handled the book.)

So all in all, working in the library is sometimes a lot weirder than i'd expected.