All for the love of books

For my first act as a newly married woman, I took all three children to the library.
We always have tons of books, and something crazy always happens, so I planned ahead and took precautions. The baby was nursed and changed and I packed all of the books into two canvas bags with handles. Usually I try to hold the baby in one arm and the books in the other, which works about as well as the mental picture I just gave you implies. I knew that some of the books were a few days late so I told Brennah and Maggie to go and quietly pick out just four books a piece. Brennah turned around and looked at me confused, "a piece?" "Each hon, I meant each one gets four." I unloaded all of the books onto the counter while holding Finn and tried to hold a converstion with the male librarian. Isn't there a law that says you have to be female to be a librarian? I guess he missed that one, but he did follow the rules when it came to personality.

I smiled brightly and told him that some of them could be a little late, so I needed to know how much I owed. He looked long and hard at the computer and glanced at me a little surprised, "eight dollars and ten cents." Well at the library that is a veritable fortune, since each time is only like ten cents when it is late. I politely asked that he find out what the fee was for. That is when it all started downhill. He starts printing out this list on a little printer kind of like a grocery store receipt thingy. It is loud and keeps going and going and going until it falls off of the counter and down the back. While this is going on, Maggie runs up to me, grabs her crotch and whispers (you know the kid library whisper that sounds like they are screaming?) I have to go to the bathroom! I glanced at the ticker tape thing still happily humming and told Mags that she would have to get Brennah to take her. She runs back in 10 seconds. "She says she won't take me!" So I left the printer for a minute and went to talk with Bren, where I gently suggested she take Maggie. Then I went back to where the thing was still going. At this point the man- librarian or mabrarian starts to kind of smirk a little. Which is no little thing because I had been cracking one liners to no avail since arriving. Anyway, it turns out that although I had nothing outstanding now, I had late fees that had slowly piled up since moving back last year. I had him go ahead and check Jon's card which was $3.40 and my own which was a modest .30 cents (the eight dollars was on Bren's card-awful I know). I handed him my visa check card. The look of horror that I was given I cannot even describe to you. "We don't take PLASTIC!" This said in the library whisper. I offered to bring back the $11.80 in cash at a later date which he accepted. Since wonder of wonders these people still allowed me to pick out some books (I guess they knew a library moneymaker when the saw one) I went off to peruse the shelves. I suddenly realized that the girls weren't back and a moment of mommy panic ensued, so off I went toward the bathroom, and heard them WAY before I got there. I walked in to see Brennah crawling on the nasty floor out from under the stall door. "Mommy, Maggie went into the out of order one!!!!!" I looked at the 3 other empty stalls. Of course my child would pick the one. The door opened and Maggie cheerfully popped out, as I start envisioning telling the mabrarian that my little girl has stopped up the toilet and would he please grab a plunger? Brennah told me solemnly that the sign was on the back of the door. I looked around and there it was, a large printed paper that said, "PLEASE DO NOT FLUSH SANITARY NAPKINS." Well thank goodness for that anyway, "Bren it's fine," as I held the baby and reached my flip-flopped foot up to flush as I clenched my toes so that my shoe would stay on. We all trooped back into the library to pick out books. Findlay decided that he needed to get into the action so he started making the loud baby playing with his lips noise. Definitely not on the okay library list. By the time we left, I was so exhausted that I forewent the grocery store and we had leftovers.
P.S. Tiffany Flamm is my hero.