2.07.08

Category: dribblings

may i nerd out here for a moment? i think that working at the ‘brary has turned me into a square old crone. okay, more of a square old crone.

there’s a girl who comes in once or twice a week and she’s in high school and she reads TONS of shitty werewolf/fantasy/vampire/junk, but she’s always nice and we always talk about books or whatever and then she leaves and i always feel like, “yeah jaimie, you’ve still got it. you can still talk to high school kids, you haven’t become an old dork yet.”

well. she came in a couple of days ago and she was all attitude! she had a brand new tattoo on her back. it’s a really great tat, but also, high school kid here. there’s not one damn thing i loved in high school that i still love today. well, besides mr. fleegan. (aw. see, i can be sweet) but i say nothing to her about regretful tattoos or ANYthing lame like that. i just said, “nice tat.” and she says, ” *sigh* NO it DIDN’T hurt and YES you can touch it.”

well, one, i didn’t ask, and two, i’d never touch someone’s tattoo! especially not a new one! that would be like touching an open sore. gag. so i figured she must be hormonal or a pissy werewolf or something. so i was all, “okay, have a good one.” and walked away, but then she needed help on the computer. “can you show me how to get this thing to make columns?”

she was using microsloth word and so i was all, “yeah, you just click the-” but she was already in columns. so i asked, “do you need more than two columns per page?”

“no.” she said in that teenage way.

“then you’re all set, it’s already set to columns.”

“no it isn’t.”

“um, but… it is.”

“then WHY isn’t it working?”

“because you haven’t typed anything yet.” and i held down the number 4 on the number pad and watched as a column of 4s filled the screen.

“oh.”

“yeah.”

“i’m making a cheat sheet.”

so now we’re friends again? i can’t remember the last time i heard someone say “cheat sheet”. i didn’t know what to say so i just said, “no kidding?” (i say, “really?” and “no kidding?” a lot. oh, and awesome. i say awesome too much.

“yeah. i have a test tomorrow.”

and here’s me, the ultimo-goober completely shocked that someone would cheat on a test, “wha- wait, you’re going to cheat?”

“yes.”

“you’re going to cheat? on a test?!”

“ye-es,” she says. but it’s not just yes, like, affirmative. but it’s more of that teen-girl yes which is more like, “yes, GAH, I SWEAR YOU ARE RETARDED leave me alone why am i so misunderstood? I HATE YOU!”

so i leave to go back to the circ. desk and i get there and jan, my ‘brary mate is there and i’m all, “you won’t believe this! THAT GIRL TOLD ME SHE WAS GOING TO CHEAT! i’m so dorky i had to ask her TWICE. and twice she said she was going to CHEAT.”

“what?”

“ON A TEST!”

“what?“

“ON PURPOSE. she’s going to cheat!”

“she told you this?”

“i know!” see, i knew i could trust jan because she, like me, is a huge nerd. and neither of us would ever cheat on anything. not because we think it’s wrong (BUT IT IS WRONG), it’s much nerdier than that, it’s that we know if you cheat at something you’re only cheating yourself.

did you read that last thing i wrote?! “if you cheat at something you’re only cheating yourself.” seriously?! when did i lose my cool?! who says that kind of junk?! “you’re only cheating yourself.” rrrrrrgh! when did i become this…this moralistic fortune cookie thinker person?! i am so lame.

so where was i? oh yeah, jan was all, “she told you she’s going to cheat?”

“yeah. isn’t that horrible?”

“on a test? for school?”

“i’m right there with you.”

“i can’t believe she told you.”

“one the one hand, i don’t actually care if she cheats. but on the other hand, i’ll never look at her the same again. i really like her, she’s a reader, you know? not many high school kids come in here for fun, right? but i mean, a cheater?”

“heh, let’s call her school.”

“hee! we can’t do that.”

“i know.”

“when she comes up to check out i’m going to shame her.”

“what kind of cheater tells people she’s going to cheat?”

“a cry for help?”

“yeah, and you helped her cheat.”

“it was just columns! and she already had it in columns! she just didn’t know…because her brain is filled with cheating.”

so a few minutes later angst-teen girl comes up to check out her stack of fantasy books. jan scans the books and is putting the date stickers on them. i walk up, point at the girl, and loudly stage whisper, “CHEEEEEEEATER! CHEEEEEATER! CHEEEEEATER!”

the girl, who has no sense of humor about this, gives me a death stare from the inner-most circle of the 4th realm of Teenage Wasteland (it’s only teenage wasteland) and she walks out. as soon as the door closes jan loses it, “i can’t believe you just did that!”

“i thought she would’ve at least cracked a smile.”

“i CANNOT believe you just CALLED HER A CHEATER! TO HER FACE.”

“she told me she was going to cheat.”

“to her face!”

“she should’ve at LEAST owned it. i mean, you tell someone you’re gonna cheat, then they call you on it, the very least you can do is own it.”

“she was NOT amused.”

“for real. did you see that death stare? she probably put some kind of spell on me.”

jan is laughing her ass off, i mean, with tears, “i can’t believe you did that. that was so funny! TO HER FACE!”

and the rest of the day we’d crack ourselves up by whispering, “cheater!” over and over. and really, i think a year ago if some kid told me they were cheating on a test i’d have been all, “why the hell you tellin’ me?” but now, maybe it’s the job, maybe it’s that i’m 30 years old and some kind of switch flips and alla sudden you’re a dork, but now i’m all, GASP. “cheating?! how very dare you!”
what gives?

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