Children, and the Experiment of Life at Booth and Noble

Hello.

Apologies for the length of time between posts. Turns out -- I was on vacation last week! My affairs, however, are now in order and it is time to return to the wasteland that is Booth and Noble.

The past couple of times I've worked as a Grunt I've been surprised by the ineptitude of children. Turns out, they're not very intelligent. Or considerate. Or quiet.

See, it's "summer reading" time at Booth and Noble, which means that parents drag their grade school children and teenagers to the Booth and Noble to get them books -- people that have never cracked a book in their life are now "helping" their progeny find a book that they will never actually read. These illiterate children pick up the book like it's made of seaweed and wrinkle their noses like it smells like seaweed, and then hand the book to their parents to purchase, like seaweed. Perhaps we should ban them from entering the store.

I'm all for children's literacy. I think Harry Potter is really good. (I do, really!). I think it's great that children are reading, and that books have opened up their imagination and kept them inside and away from all the places I go, like bus stops, restaurants, and restrooms.

However, these children do come into Booth and Noble, so I guess I'm not completely free of them. They stand in the middle of the aisle, having not yet been taught by their parents (or any capable authority figure) the proper way to get out of the way.

In fact, this seems to be the problem here. Children themselves are lovely, cute, edible people. But when they aren't taught by adults to behave in an adult world, or when they are coddled to the point of lunacy, or when they are allowed to roam freely around screaming like they're on fire because the parents think that their precious little darling is more important than any other people in the store -- This is when the lovely, cute, edible people become denizens of the dark lord.

Anyway, what's been happening is that these children are running willy-nilly through the store, like they own the place.

The thing is, they do not. Booth and Noble own the place. Booth and Noble's policy is that I can kick kids in the face.

What this means is that I'm completely on edge, all the time, at work. When scores of kids run around because their parents let them act like douche bags, I become agitated. And I cannot give good customer service when I'm agitated.

So a father comes up to me yesterday and asks for some help, I am not as helpful as I could be.

He emerges from the test preparation books and asks, "I'm looking for a book that will help my daughter with Chemistry and Physics."

I ask, in reply, "Is she studying for a test? Do you want a test preparation book?" I thought to myself, perhaps he couldn't find the proper book in the test preparation books.

"No," he flatly says. "I want a book that will help her review concepts."

I decide to press this one step further, just to be sure.

"Many text preparation books have review in them. Are you sure it's not for a test?" I mean, it's July. Who buys a review book for the daughter after they've graduated?

"No, I need a review book." He is adamant.

So I take him to the science section -- all the way across the expanse of Booth and Noble. I hand him a good, solid review book of chemistry concepts, and a good, solid book of physics concepts. He looks at them and then turns to me.

"Will these help her study for the SAT?"

I looked at him like he had just dropped his trousers and shat on the floor.

"No, for that you'd want a TEST PREPARATION book." I lead him back to THE EXACT SAME SECTION as he had JUST LEFT and handed him the EXACT BOOK he had been looking at.

I'm not against children. Or against children reading. Maybe what I'm against are parents interfering with their children reading. Every day in the children's department at Booth and Noble we have parents telling their kids, "no, you don't want to read that." Or, "that book is too old for you." Or, worse yet, "you're not smart enough for that book." It's horrifying, knowing that our future is being told, at age 7, that they're too stupid for a book.

Maybe it's not children that should be banned from Booth and Noble, but parents.