I used to work as a student helper at Aiea Public Library. It was my first job, and quite a score. Every kid wanted to work here. I don’t quite know how I got the job, but I did, thanks to my dad giving me a head’s up. He’d pack the most amazing lunches when I worked on the weekends, sandwiches better than any deli anywhere.
After awhile, I got bored shelving books, straightening bookshelves, and asking a librarian for extra work to do. I’d sit at the paperback carousel straight reading Harlequin Romances, Stephen King’s “The Shining,” anything interesting I could get my hands on.
Every day I had to check in with my initials, usually two hours, sometimes three (those were the worst). I saw everybody there, coming to check out books and do research, from the linebacker I had a crush on to my ex-boyfriend, who would make out with a married man out back. Once, I saw my third grade teacher from Ft. Shafter.
Every so often, I’ll go back to the library in my dreams to initial the orange calendar printout hanging on the wall in the staffroom and look for books to arrange and put away. Each time, I’d meet new student helpers, each batch more obnoxious than the next.
They made working there, even part-time, a living hell.
For some reason, they thought they were ruling their own private fiefdom rather than serving the public. As the library grew grander, with more elaborate additions — a full-on cafeteria, an arcade room, an upstairs devoted to rare British books — these student helpers’ sense of entitlement did too.
In this morning’s dream, they were downright mean to me. Calling me names to my face, deriding me, tripping me on the way to the storage room, threatening to kick my ass if I touched one book.
“Find any stray book you can to put away,” the librarian said.
“Not a good idea,” I interjected. “They’re gonna get pissed off if I take the books they were gonna put away on their time.”“She’s right,” piped up one of the mean girl student helpers, not busting my chops for a change. “We will.”
I forgot to initial the calendar for the first hour, even though I was working upstairs, but I briefly considered quitting altogether.
I didn’t know these people anymore. They were younger and far removed from the time period I grew up in. I didn’t want to know them.
All I wanted to do was get in my mom’s white Mercury Zephyr and drive to Zippy’s at Pearl Ridge Center for a bento, maybe swing by Anna Miller’s for strawberry pie.
But those days are gone forever.