“Wild,” was the word the librarian used. Her observation wasn’t about a new Best Seller. It was in reference to the kids at today’s workshop. And, until they finally settled down for my slide presentation, that’s exactly what most of them were. Like rambunctious puppies let off their leash to run loose and shit all over the Dog Park. Then roll in it.
The “wild” quip came after our class had left the library and I walked back across the street with my nail polish remover and paper towels to scrub off the permanent marker scribbles caked like blood along the bottom of the library’s dry erase board. Our popular preschool co-op (and you know how I feel about this ludicrous preschool homeschooler concept) met there earlier in the week with an invitation to use the large paper pad and markers on the easel. Obviously, none of this damage was my teen’s doing. But apparently, it was my job to undo.
Well, okay, I volunteered – but only through default – after several librarians scolded us over the graffiti and questioned how to get it off. I told everyone: nail polish remover. Yet not one mother who attended the Monday’s free-for-all jumped in her car, drove a quarter of a mile in either direction to a convenience or dollar store, bought a bottle of acetone, grabbed some TP from the bathroom and right their wrong right there and then. Instead, two women pulled out their date books to figure out the NEXT time they’d be at the library, while the mom in charge of the co-op that day slinked out the door in mid-conversation.
Their matter of fact explanation about the mistaken markers consisted of, oh yes, having seen the kids writing on the pad and the board underneath, but they figured the markers were of the dry erase persuasion so, hey, what-me-worry, nobody bothered to take those few big-girl steps across the room just to make sure.
Gee, Officer, I thought the gun wasn