Kids get so much shit nowadays for lack of creativity and being helicoptered to the point that they have trouble completing basic tasks like cutting things out of paper, but I used to work as a children’s librarian and lemme tell you how fucking FANTASTIC/funny kids are:
-A group of kids would come in after school and hang out while doing homework. I overheard them talking about ghosts, and made up a full story that the library was haunted by the ghost of someone’s butt. They immediately formed a paranormal society amongst themselves and for the next two months, I hid secret messages and clues for them around the library as the Butt Ghost™️.
-Whenever it was time to start a program or everyone was acting up, I’d threaten to fist fight whoever wasn’t behaving in the story pit. They LOVED that, and over time the threats grew to kicking their butts off the balcony above the circ desk and cutting their feet off. One 4 year old in particular was really into this and would follow me around like a hype man, adding worse and worse threats onto what I said until we got a call from a parent who’s kid was worried little Hype Man was going to “spork her eyeballs”.
-On a rainy summer afternoon, an 8 year old girl came up to me and very seriously confessed that she was actually an 8000 year old vampire, with a 90 minute origin story to back up the claim. She quickly became my favorite and would spend hours at the library hanging out with me. She decided that because she was there so much, she might as well get paid for it, and so one day after the head admin visited us, she asked him if he would just hire her already (all whilst putting stickers all over her face). It didn’t work, but that’s my go-to interview tactic now.
-Baby Vamp loved the library so much that she made a Sims version of it, complete with Sims of the two of us so she could always be in her favorite place. She would stress me out by peeling a whole banana and then eating the thing while holding the bare banana in her hand. To this day she’ll text me photos of peeled bananas just sitting around her house. She also refused to take “maybe in the future” as an answer when I told her we couldn’t afford to do a program she wanted, so she went around and got 100+ signatures on a petition. Guess who found money in the budget?
-A junior high student came in one night while I was swamped working the desk and wanted me to guess what happened at the high school football game over the weekend. When I gave a generic guess, he countered with “No, some guy came up to my friend and pushed him, and so I pushed him back and then he got in my face and said “Bet you don’t have the balls to punch me”, so I choked him out and now my church is mad at me”. This was apparently a game where his church was doing a fundraiser to help a family fighting cancer, and he was supposed to be running raffle tickets.
One of my favorite things about working with them was the sheer amount of crazy stuff I never thought I’d have to say out loud, like:
“Can we please stop talking about God for five seconds and focus on the Titanic?”
“Please do not poop your pants in the story pit.”
“We are definitely not going to make Tide Pod slime.”
“Please stop telling everyone you’re going to eat their butts.”
“Are you sure you want the Illuminati symbol painted on your face? What about a football instead?”
“Unfortunately, you can’t take your pants off in the library.”
“This space is a dab-free zone.”
“I don’t think your parents would appreciate you putting a trail cam in the living room to catch Santa.”
“You don’t get to cry if someone calls you a brat for throwing a stapler at them.”
“8th graders can’t check out 50 Shades of Grey. I don’t care if you pinky promise to cover your eyes at the bad parts.”
“If you’re going to fist fight, do it in the hallway. I’m not cleaning up blood.”
“You can’t say someone is ‘probably pregnant’ just because they cut the lunch line in front of you.”
“Please stop licking the desk.”
“It’s not called ‘friendly fire’ when you fart in your friend’s face, you’re just being a jerk.”
