I don’t know what’s worse - this or the old-lady-in-a-bun-shushing stereotype.  Maybe I should get a puppet to tell the kids to be quiet for me.  I could do a weird voice and be all like “Be quiet you annoying kids”, and then look all innocent like it wasn’t me.  Yes, the puppet can take the blame.

I was reading the article outloud to D and every time the librarian’s name would come up (about every other sentence), I would dramatically pause and say Schmidli in a crazy voice and then we would laugh.  That might be my new mantra.  When I’m in a pissy mood or upset I’ll just think Schmidli and the world will seem a little bit better.

Later on in the day there was more UFC talk - two boys were speaking about Georges St-Pierre on their way out of the library. I perked up my ears in time to hear one of them say, “GSP sucks.” I was so shocked that for a moment I was speechless. Finally I got my wits about me and called out, “Hey, nobody talks bad about Georges St-Pierre in this library” but it was too late. The offending delinquent was already gone and I was annoyed because my future second husband had been so grossly disrespected. Damn, I should have went after the culprit and sent him to the dean. Better yet, I should have armbarred him myself.

As we were sitting there, Favorite Teacher and I, I started to feel like we were at a book signing and the teacher was the author and I was the agent who had to make sure that everything ran smoothly.  And for every student that approached, I realized that no one is going to care about the librarian.  Even though I worked so hard all year to clean up the library and make it student-friendly, even though I ordered some incredible books (if I do say so myself) and made interesting displays, even though I tried to remember hundreds of names and suggest fun books for their independent reading, even though I made jokes all year and let them get away with too much…I’m still just a librarian and no one will want me immortalized in their yearbook.

Favorite Teacher tried to cheer me up by reminding me that this is only my first year and that a lot of seniors didn’t get to know me yet.  “Besides I think a lot of the boys are just shy with you.  See that kid standing there”, he said, pointing to a boy I don’t recall ever seeing in the library.  “He said to me ‘The new librarian is really hot.  She’s a wifey.’”.  I have never heard the term wifey before but it didn’t sound very good.  Favorite Teacher, however, assured me that it is a compliment, high up there on the scale of hotness.  I took him at his word (though I did look it up later on Urban Dictionary just to be sure) and watched him sign more books.  I guess I’m good enough to drool over but not good enough to sign a yearbook.

By the time we realized that we were just about the only faculty left in the cafeteria, Favorite Teacher almost had carpal tunnel syndrome from all the dedications and autographs.  But, guess what, I wasn’t doing too bad myself.  Four.  As in one plus one plus one plus one.  Two boys and two girls who’d been regulars in the library asked me to sign their yearbooks.  It was a cool feeling to think that years on down the road they might look in that book and fondly recall the nice librarian who gave them cool books to read.   And it was also a cool feeling to know that when they look at my picture they will always remember me as a wifey.

Luckily the robe is the right size, though it is made of an awful 70s-style polyester (Regal Beagle anyone?) and has strange wing-like structures on the ends of the sleeves, making me feel like Batgirl’s little sister, Nerdgirl. I pray that I don’t get set on fire while trying to rescue someone from the clutches of the Dewey Decimal Monster.

But at least getting the robe on is simple; the hood, on the other hand, is a nightmare. I am completely confounded. I’ve read the directions several times and spent a good half hour (OK, fine, more like 10 minutes) trying to make it look like in the picture. The hood was being uncooperative while I was getting more and more frustrated. I still haven’t figured it out, but at least I will be available if they need a substitute at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry:

.

Now I just need to dust off the ol’ Nimbus 2000.

Unfortunately none of these things happened.  The prom was very nice and normal and uneventful (though of course I don’t have any other prom to compare with).  D and I got there about an hour after the official start time, just in time to see several limos pull in.  Most were of the long, white, SUV variety but there was also a canary-yellow Hummer limo that reminded me of a giant banana-boat.  As the kids started piling out, all that was missing was a red carpet.  The girls were dressed to kill with beautiful gowns and done-up hair.  The boys looked great too in their suits and Usher sunglasses.

Once inside, we picked our seats and got food.  It was a buffet that was disappointingly unremarkable (though it probably would’ve tasted better after a few drinks…except that it was a dry event).  Even D, who normally goes back for seconds, gave up after the first plate. And then we spent some time introducing D to my colleagues, most of whom (is it whom or who or which?) he will probably never see again.  Between the music and D’s partial deafness from the Army, it was hard to get a conversation going.  Eventually we moved off to the side with one of the teachers and his girlfriend - a very cool couple that I knew would not make for awkward “how’s the weather” conversations - and bemoaned the fact that none of us had actually brought a flask.

By then the dancing was in full effect and the kids were all on the dance floor.  There was a lot of current music at first but then the dj kicked it old skool.  He played some Bell Biv Devoe (ya’ll know you remember “that girl is poison”) and that brilliant one-hit wonder by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock (”it takes two to make a thing go right”).  By the time he got to House Of Pain’s Jump Around the kids were going nuts.  The floor started moving up and down.  I am not exagerating - it moved at least several inches - and I remembered that wedding tragedy a few years ago that was caught on tape, when the floor collapsed from all the dancing.  My heart started to beat fast, my legs turned to Jello, and I slowly backed away as far as I could get.  Did I mention that we were about 14 stories up?  Yeah, we were and I was expecting us to be 14 stories down in about 2.5 seconds.  I think I was the only chicken in the place because no one else seemed to care and the dj was yelling, “Yeah, we got the floor shaking” like it was a good thing.

Eventually a slow song came on and D and I went to dance.  It was very sweet except for the fact that he kept tring to cop a feel the whole time.  And I’m sure the kids were disgusted because there was a pair of old farts making out on the dance floor.  But I didn’t care because I got to dance with my man (who did indeed wear the Rancid tie) and goof off a bit.

We hung out for a little while longer but it really was uneventful (sorry guys).  I took photos but they came out awful since the lights were dimmed and the flash sucked.  I tried to get some blackmail photos of teachers dancing but was thwarted at every step.  Finally I gave up and just watched the kids posing for their photos - no tacky backgrounds or fake trees, just a simple short column and flowers.  Most kids posed as couples but there was one boy who posed alone, wearing a red baseball cap with his suit and flashing the East Coast sign.

By this time it was after 10:30 and I figured I’d tortured D enough for one night.  He was a good sport about it considering that there was no alcohol, he couldn’t hear very well, the food wasn’t anything to brag about, he didn’t know anyone, and he doesn’t like teenagers.  So we said our good-byes, hopped in the car, and drove home to watch Battlestar Gallactica.

Everyone around here is in an unusually good mood - the kids are chatting with me a bit more, there are smiles all around, and I was even entertained by two teachers who stopped by my desk and then proceeded to stamp one another with my “Discard” stamp.

In less than two hours I will be going home to beautify myself for the prom.  It’ll be the one time per year when my colleagues will see me in a dress and heels.  D decided to wear a suit instead of slacks and shirt.  But I am trying to talk him into wearing the red silk Rancid tie I bought him in Bangkok.  Yeah, as in the band Rancid.  I think it will be a nice edgy piece to his otherwise formal attire.  I mean, I can’t arrive with a boring date.  I gotta represent.

OK, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let’s get down to business - I am going to the prom next Friday. Obviously the prom is for the seniors graduating this year but apparently faculty can go too. (In fact, faculty should go so that all hell doesn’t break loose.) When I first heard about it I didn’t give it much thought since it’s not really my thing. I didn’t even go to my own prom because I don’t dance, I figured the music would suck, and the cost seemed outrageous for someone making $5 an hour at the time. But as the deadline looms, the idea started gnawing at me. What better way to make up for not going to the prom by going years (and years and years) later at the same school just for shits and giggles? I’ll wear the one dress that I’ve worn to every fancy occasion in the last five years, have a delicious dinner, and not care about anything since I’m not a teenager. What once might have been a hormonally-plagued life-and-death freak-out can now be a fun night out.

Of course I knew this plan would all depend on D since I don’t want to go without a date (oh, the shame). And D has a natural inclination to say No to everything. Sometimes I can’t even get the question out and he’s already said No and moved on to the next topic. But I figured I’d give it a try so I waited till we were both cozy on the futon:

We don’t have any plans for next Friday, do we?

No, not that I know of.

Would you go to the prom with me? We don’t have to chaperone or anything. We get a free dinner and hang out, maybe do a slow dance.

That’s pretty funny. OK, let’s go. It’ll be hysterical.

People, good thing I was sitting down because I was expecting a few rounds of back and forth, gnashing of teeth and wailing, some pretty-pleasing, and finally giving up. Instead, my husband agreed to accompany me to the prom. (Of course I have considered the fact that this may be some sort of clone or alien trick, but if that’s the case they can keep D ’cause I’m liking this pod person.)

Now I just have to find out if there will be liquor or if we need to sneak in our own flasks.

This is probably the weirdest request that I ever got from a patron. Sure sir, let me just wrangle up one of these kids for you. Little Johnny, go with this nice man and climb through his window, okay? I told him that he would have to speak with individual parents regarding their children and that there was nothing we could do. Part of me felt bad for the guy but the suspicious part of me was wondering if the story wasn’t a little too perfect. He seemed to have an answer for everything. We asked him if anyone else had a spare key but he replied that there had been one under the mat until he decided to bring it back into the house two weeks ago. Were there any other family members that could help him? No, his wife and daughter were at the spa. Could he ask one of his neighbor’s kids to climb through the window? No, he’d been living there for 25 years and everyone’s kids were grown up. (This last one I found very hard to believe, especially since we were in the suburbs, in a fancy neighborhood where having multiple kids seemed to be a status symbol, with an average of four or five per family.) “No”, he said. “It would have to be a small child. And I have a dog so the child can’t be afraid of dogs.”

There was nothing we could do to help him and finally he left. The other librarian and I wondered if we were on Candid Camera. Why not just call the police or a locksmith? Go and hang out in a neighbor’s house until his wife came home? Or ask a neighbor to drive him to get the keys from his wife? When he first came over and said that he was locked out of the house and that he couldn’t fit through the side window, I thought that he was going to ask me or the other librarian if one of us could try since we were much smaller than him. In fact, I almost volunteered myself until I started thinking about The Silence of the Lambs and other creepy stuff. I pictured myself climbing through the window, getting attacked by a killer Rottweiler, falling through a trap door, and being held hostage in an underground dungeon. No, I wasn’t about to go in there without backup. Or at least not without a box of doggy treats and a can of Mace.

Are you jealous, bitches?

I’m not sure who is creepier - the man with his shiny plastic orange skin or the Bette Midler-esque woman with the lazy eye. Obviously this book has been forgotten on the shelf from the time it was purchased 20-something years ago. But I don’t think this could’ve ever appealed to a teenager in high school. Not even in the 1980s. Maybe this was purchased with the faculty in mind? Were the teachers coming to school dressed in these stunning “separates”:

I checked the circulation stats and found that it had gone out a total of 0.0 times since it’s purchase. And that’s probably a good thing because nobody wants to see the Sporty “Spicy” woman walking down the hallway: