Thumper Thinks Out Loud

I’m just curious.

When did it become all right to allow children to run screaming through a public library? When I was a kid—yeah, shut up, the wheel had long been invented by then—we were taught to whisper in the library, and if we were caught misbehaving the librarian would come up with some suitable method of punishment. We were never sure what that would be, but we were sure it would be awful, horrible, and might involve the loss of some bodily fluid, probably blood.

Granted, we thought it was stupid, but we were reasonably quiet. People could sit back and read or study in our pre-pubescent presence. They only had to worry about looking up just in time to see some kid pull a finger out from the depths of his nose and shove his newfound treasure right into his mouth.

I went to the base library to work today. I thought I could get more done there in the peace and quiet, where I would not have the distraction of the Internet and computer games (oh, BTW, I am now over 6 million in my current game of BeSpelled…) The base has a nice library, bright and spacious with study areas and tables for people to sit at and work.

They also have this huge fish tank with several nice sized fish. And, apparently, the fish are deaf and kids need to scream at them in order to get their little fishy attentions.

The kids’ parents didn’t stop them.
No one working at the library stopped them.
They just stood there and yelled at the poor fish, who had no where they could go to get away from the little mosters.

And it wasn’t just the yelling. It was the shrill, ear-splitting laughter (yeah, whatever was funny was funny, I suppose, but people 3 counties over don’t need to know that, I don’t think.) Usually kids laughing makes me laugh as well…but not in the library. The noise made me want to stand on the desk and shout Shut the phck uuuuppppp!, but I still have that residual childhood training.

After all, the librarian may hear me, and come after me with a steel edged ruler, whereupon I will either wet myself, or bleed to death.

Yeah.
Whatever happened to scaring our kids into compliance?
I mean, what’s a threat or two if it keeps the peace…?