Shoes

Today, I shared the quiet room with The Dick. I don't have a more clever name for him because I've only seen him once before, and no other moniker better describes him.

He just has that arrogant jut of his chin, lid of his eyes, and swagger of his hips, the way he bangs his stuff around and slams the furniture. And he pulls the 'comfortable' chairs and a table to the center of the room for his own benefit. At least last time, I think he put them back when he left. And his phone/laptop makes a lot of noise. And he stalks around with his phone like a high-powered CEO or something.

Today, he remarked that I must be here a lot because I was here last month when he came in. I told him I'm here every day and then hid behind the stricture of the quiet room to avoid any other conversation. He moved the chairs again and started clicking as loudly and often as is humanly possible.

A librarian zeroed in on him from periodicals, opened the door, and told him to put his shoes back on. He immediately got up and rearranged the chairs for some reason.

After a time, another lady came in and took her shoes off. The security guard that paces laps around the building didn't take one lap to tell her to put them back on. She yelped and jumped up, and after putting them back on, left.

I don't know when this new policy took effect, but I like it. I've had to stare at enough bare feet in the library.

I haven't written in a while because I got tired of my own complaining, so I can only imagine what a reader would feel. So I went back to my internal narration that doesn't do anything but make me an even weirder introvert. At least this way, I'm exercising my fingers and vocabulary.

The end of summer was actually pretty quiet. A few of the regular characters came and went without anything memorable. As school started, it was really quiet, abandoned almost. Now, though, students are coming back without much individual regularity. But there are days when the tables are full and the children are screaming across the library.