Bookstore
It was sometime between when I found it and when I realized what it was that I began to wonder how I was actually going to make it through this day. I knelt close to it, hands on my knees being careful not to get to close and examined it as best I could. No way. This was it, things had just gotten weird.
I'd spent the day working the 2:30pm to 11:30pm shift in the kids section of Barnes and Nobles--a seasonal job more out of a need for something to occupy my time than from a need for money--and most of that time was spent reshelving books. Now, I like to sort, but sometimes it's asking too much of me to run the entire children's department, and I end up scanning the same book twelve times before it actually sinks into me in what section it belongs. Too much work with the PDT scanner makes a person go silly, there's no getting around that.
And while we're on the subject of crazy, there's something that needs to be said for the good of humanity. Soundstory books should be eliminated from existence. You know what a soundstory book is whether you realize it or not. It's the books with the buttons you push upon reaching certain parts of the story, which make the noises of characters, animals or anything else that generally sounds like the devil screaming. But that's not all, folks, we have a new and improved version of these curses upon your sense of hearing; we have books that play songs over and over again whenever they're opened. An hour. I heard the My Little Pony theme song on repeat for an hour.
However, My Little Pony on a hell-bound repeat is standard procedure by now. What I found myself kneeling over a few hours later (or three My Little Pony cycles later) was not. Now, the noise that was flowing through my mind wasn't those damned soundstory books, it was my inner-monologue saying, "No. This isn't happening. No. I refuse to believe this is what it is. No. No. Should I just quit at this point? I'm not cleaning that up." Finally I decided that I couldn't do this alone; I had to get a manager.
"Um, Diana? I think there's something you should see in the children's department."
We walked to the back of the store, to where the kids section is, and I pointed it out.
"Is that what I think it is?" I asked.
"I think that's exactly what you think it is."
Shit. Literally. Some kid shit on the floor. I mean, a small child dropped a load. Took a dump. He shit--on--the--floor.
The best part: someone had obviously stepped in half of it. That sucks. That reeeeeally sucks. I can see it now as they get home and take off their shoes only to find there's a little something extra they brought home with the Christmas shopping: "What the hell? We don't even have dogs!"
As Diana went to the back to get some gloves to clean up the random turd, I hovered over it, standing guard to make sure no one else got an extra special surprise when they took off their shoes tonight.
What really gets me, and I mean, this really blows my mind, is the mechanics of this. How on earth did this mini-007-pooper pull this off without anyone noticing it? If he was wearing diapers, this wouldn't have happened. One turd doesn't just pop out in perfect condition. Now, I've seen cases where the kid practically explodes and there is some overflow, but it's never in pristine (is that even a word you can use for this?) condition. Okay, so the kid wasn't wearing diapers (though it's obvious at this point that he should have been). If he wasn't wearing diapers, then he must have pulled down his pants, in which case, where the hell was I? How did I not see a tot pulling off his pants in the middle of the department? How did no one else see him, I donno, maybe a parent? Maybe they did, which I can't even consider as a real possibility because that would require them leaving a steaming load on the carpet.
By the time Diana returned with Lysol, gloves and plenty of paper towels, I'd already laughed myself into a stupor. "Thanks," I told her through the lunatic giggle fit.
Time for my dinner break. Thanks God. I got myself some Thundercloud and came back to the break room. A girl comes up to me to show me where to put the phones with dead batteries and introduced herself: "Hi, I'm Rachel, I work in Cafe."
"Hi, I'm Claire, I do kids."
Fuck.
That wasn't the first time I'd introduced myself as Claire the pedophile. Every time I introduce myself, remind myself not to say "I do kids" because I'm a legal adult and that stuff will get you in trouble.
Anyway, I get back from my break and head back into the cave. Paranoia begins to set in for no apparent reason (sleep deprivation?) and now I'm talking to myself. "You can't let your guard down, ya know? You have to remember that these kids will ruin your entire life if you give them a chance."
I'm pretty sure the respectable mom standing behind me heard it when I said, "Dora, you whore!" under my breath as I searched for where to put Dora Goes To School. Crap. Now she thinks I'm crazy. Maybe I was actually starting to lose it. It was when I realized there was a voice in my head reciting the mantra "Gotta keep your head on a swivel. Gotta keep your head on a swivel..." that I realized I had.
The sad thing is, whenever I leave my post of "doing kids" to venture into the open store, I always dread it and want to get back into my colorful cave where all the books know my name, or vise versa--I'm not really sure at this point. It seems I've been sucked into a downward spiraling funnel of insanity and I think I like it. Goes to show that you can't escape it, eventually you will go insane. Maybe it's not from random turds appearing on the floor with no poopee to be found, but eventually, somewhere, somehow, a "Series of Unfortunate Events" (which I spend a total of about an hour straightening up today) will wrench your mind from you in the most blissful kind of way.