Seems lately I’m scheduled often for the late shift at the library, working 5-9 p.m. on Friday or Saturday nights.  There are good points and bad points to this.  The good being that I can get a lot done during the day when I don’t have to be at work until 5.  The bad points generally revolve around being at work on a Friday or Saturday night!  But then again, working such a random schedule, different hours, different days, no two weeks the same has caused me to lose all sense of time or dates or days of the week.  The weekend is no longer something to long for, it really has no meaning for me at all anymore.   And almost every day I have to stop and think seriously about what day it is and where I’m supposed to be…and when.  Time seems to flow by seamlessly without the start and stop of a more classic work week.  Suddenly we’re in the middle of October..yesterday was  May and tomorrow will be Christmas…it’s all a blur to me!

Tonight was a slow night at the library, slow enough that I got to do more people watching than usual during my four hours at the mall branch of our library.  Here’s a few of my favorite observations:

It must have been homecoming for a high school somewhere nearby.  Several very young looking couples wandered by our door, hand in hand, girls dressed up in fancy outfits, hair done up, the boys in suits looking spiffy.  I noticed the flash of a camera, glanced out and saw a parent taking pictures of a cute couple dressed in their finery.  But I wondered…why take pictures at the mall?  Come to think of it, why were any of these dressed up couples at the mall?  Aren’t there  other places that are much more cool to hang out?  Then again –  sadly maybe there aren’t, especially here in  this recession worn out Midwestern, smallish town.

A couple of times during the evening middle-aged couples came in just to say “Hi” to the regulars that work this branch.  They were scoping out the new release movies and best seller books, but it was clear that they really stopped in to visit with the staff.  One of them even said enthusiastically that “this is  my favorite place in the whole mall!” as he left after his visit.  Made me smile, because it’s mine too.

And in another chapter in the continuing saga of “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover,” I realized that sometimes I do judge people by what they look like.   An elderly gentleman was comfortably ensconced on the sofa, reading.   I noted his gray hair, and the two big hearing aids.  He reminded me of a more elderly version of an uncle of mine, who was a farmer most of his life.  I wondered briefly what he was reading over there, so intently, for such a long time and I happened to notice him put the magazine back on the rack as he was leaving.  Turns out he was intently reading Cosmo.    And a woman stood in front of the DVD rack in a cropped leather jacket, tight black T-shirt and leggings that ended just before her knee high black stiletto heeled boots.  Huge gold earrings dangled from her ears and her hair was jet black and teased high.   She looked like she could be in a trendy urban magazine.  After much study of the available movies she came up to the desk to check one out.  It was “Marly and Me,”  the family movie about a dog.  Go figure.

A mother stopped by the desk asking if we had anything about squirrels.  Squirrels?  Anything special she wanted to know about squirrels?  No, she said, anything at all would do.  Turns out her first grader has to write a paper about squirrels.  Due Monday of course.  Good thing we had one elementary level book about the pesky critters on the shelf tonight.

A little girl, maybe 4 or 5 waited impatiently for her mom and dad to finish using the public computers.  She’d played with the kiddy computers, looked at some books, and wandered over to the  movies for children.  But what she really wanted to do was “GO PLAY ON THE PLAYGROUND!”  As she waited she got more impatient, until she just couldn’t help it; as her parents began to pack up their stuff to leave the library she started to bounce up and down and chant “LET’S GO PLAY ON THE PLAYGROUND!” over and over…and over, getting louder each time.  She was so cute that no one really got upset, even though the parents were embarrassed enough to “SHHHHHH” her on their own without us even having to ask.

And just ten minutes before close an adult college student stops by asking if we have any scholarly information about unions.  I wonder silently if she’s tried her college library, as this particular branch is filled with more popular items, as befits a branch of the library in a mall.  But we check the catalog.  Sure enough everything in the system is located at other branches and  I ask when the paper is due.  You guessed it; Monday.  We end up making a list of some of the available items and she’ll stop at a couple of the branches tomorrow afternoon. I also showed her the data bases she can research tonight at home.   I used to think there was no need for libraries to be open on Sundays, but I’m rethinking my opinion now.  What would students do if we weren’t there for them on Sunday afternoons so that they could get started on all the homework assignments due the next day?

I’m pretty happy that I don’t have any homework due Monday or any other day.  It’s a lot more fun to work at the library than it is to study at one.  You just never know what interesting people you’re going to see while you’re there.  Tonight was a pretty calm evening, all things considered.  Just another Saturday night at the library.