Ahhh...Saturday! Is there anything better than a Saturday spent with the people you love most? Maybe if you add some ice cream to that. And some shopping too. Today, Jeremy, Raelynn and I spent our day at one of the nearby malls. Not my favorite mall, but a decent one nonetheless. Our mission: to find larger hair clips for Raelynn so she doesn't choke on them. MIL had gotten some cute ones but they posed a hazard and I had to hide them away so she'd stop using them (even after we told her not to, though I think Jeremy snapped at her about that the other day so she's done bringing potentially dangerous barrettes into our home). We weren't successful in finding anything though we did have a nice lunch and we also found imported chocolate for me (YAY!).
Jeremy had also wanted to go to the library. There is an English section there with children's books and we wanted to check out new ones. We poked through the craptacular selection of kid's books. I was a bit dismayed. Last time, Jeremy had checked out 3 books. One of them was Curious George Goes to the Zoo, which Raelynn enjoyed having me read to her. She also enjoyed One Gift Deserves Another, which was quite good too. The third book, however, was just dreadful. It was some horribly outdated thing, the kind that librarians would weed out (and perhaps submit to Awful Library Books which if you haven't seen that website and you love books, you simply must as it is delightfully hilarious) and retire from the shelves. Many of the English books Jeremy has checked out from this library are clearly rejects from American libraries. They have "withdrawn" stamped inside them. Not good enough for America but good enough for here of course. The Curious George book cracked me up because one of the pictures had a picnic scene and in it, there was a family of 3 on a blanket in the park. The father in this family was smoking! You'd never see this in a children's book today. NEVER! Sadly, I forgot to snap a photo of that before we returned it. Though hopefully we can check it out again.
Anyway, speaking of rejects, while we were scoping out the books, some Chinese lady approached Jeremy. I heard her ask him in English if I was his wife. I was only half listening as I was busy reading book titles to Raelynn and trying to keep her from shrieking. I then hear him finally answer that I was and she told him he did a good job. I take one look at her and I could feel the crazy coming off her in waves. She was wearing a ring pop, only the pop part of it was long gone and she was licking at it constantly, like a small child. Only more deranged. She then tells us she's a nanny. Do we need a nanny, she asked us. Without missing a beat, Jeremy tells her his mother watches the baby. And for the first time EVER (and probably only time EVER) I was so grateful for MIL. Why? Because I couldn't possibly leave my daughter with someone like this very visibly insane person.
Don't get me wrong. I long for a babysitter with more than half a brain. I long for one with good hygiene. But I'd rather have MIL here any day than some loony who hangs out in the English section of the library, desperate for friends. My first vibe from this girl was that she was absolutely batshit crazy. My second vibe was that she would likely run off with my child. MIL is just dumb as a bag full of rocks. I might not like her, but I don't have to worry she'll take Raelynn away from us. At the same time, I felt really sorry for this girl. I was actually relieved when Raelynn had begun screaming and crying so I could take her outside. Jeremy continued looking for books, all the while trying to politely get this lady to go away.
As I stood just outside the English room, I could smell the disgustingness that is the bathroom which was at least 100 feet from where I stood. I moved 50 more feet and could STILL smell it. I wear perfume for these moments. So I can smell my wrists when something stinks so I don't die from the stench. The last time I'd come to the library was when I was still quite pregnant. Naturally, I had to go to the bathroom everyfuckingwhere and I was forced to use the bathrooms at this library. There was shit on the floor and abominable things that one should never be forced to endure, pregnant or not. Back then, I'd said I never wanted to come back to this library. It made me long for home so badly where libraries are clean and resourceful places to spend your time. This place completely lacks that ambiance.
About 10 minutes later, the door to the English room swings open and instead of my husband comes the crazy woman. She tells me Jeremy said he needs my permission. I assumed it was for checking out the books for Raelynn, or perhaps for me to approve his picks for the books he wanted to check out. So I ran back in there with a now much quieter Raelynn. He then tells me she's crazy. "Um, DUH!" I say. He then explains that she gave him her phone number and she wants to come over to our house some time so he told her she'd have to ask me. I would have been more annoyed if I didn't feel sorry for her myself. She obviously had issues and to be rude to her would have been beyond cruel.
So when we went back out of the English room, she was still there licking at her ring pop without the pop, bouncing over to us and practically begging me if she could come over. "You know, Jennifer, we're like NEIGHBORS," she says, oozing the words out. I am a little afraid now. I don't want to see her lurking near my building in hopes of coming up to hang out. But it turns out as she talks more, she has no clue exactly where we live and I can relax a bit. She would have come across as much more desperate if she wasn't so obviously suffering from some sort of dementia. As kindly as possible, I tell her Jeremy will call her in a few weeks. "I've got a bunch of things going on with work right now and the next few weeks are super busy for me. But I'll have Jeremy call you when things calm down. Now I'm so sorry, but we do have to run," I say apologetically. And thankfully, this satisfies her. Once we're far enough away from her at the exit of the library, I turn to my husband and say, "That's it. I mean it this time. I'm never coming to this stupid fucking library again."
No comments:
Post a Comment