Another Needless Post (Lucky You):

Howdy.

I am currently sat in the library.
     Usually, whether I am trying to read, browse for a particular text, use one of the computers, or a combination of the above, this is an exercise that I find acutely annoying.

     The reason? Teenagers. Lots of them. Making noise. Lots of it. And unpleasant noise at that.

     I could cope with the varied bleeps, squawks, whistles and buzzes that emit from the mobile telephones they all appear to have glued to their fingers. 
     I could cope the never-ending myriad of sound produced by the various websites they browse and play around with. 
     I could cope with the odours wafting around them; a mixture of sweat, cheap perfume, chokingly strong body sprays, cigarettes, marijuana and various food/drink substances that hovers around their persons in a nauseating mist. 
     I could cope with the (I’m sure usually adorable) badly misbehaving small children and wailing infants that some of them bring in with them and then promptly ignore.

What I can’t cope with is all of the above at once, AND the incessant chatter. Loud chatter, peppered with bad language (fair enough, I am no saint myself on that score) and word and phrase bastardisation on a soul withering scale (sod being fair minded; on that score, I say NO, NO, NO! Bad teenagers! Naughty!).

 So, usually I avoid the library. Particularly the computers, where they tend to congregate in vast numbers (four to one computer is the norm. Plus infant in pushchair). And if I have no choice, I am in and out as soon as I possibly can be. Which is a shame, because when I was in my late teens I used to love wasting time on my lonesome at the library. Reading, writing, messing around on the newly installed computers; it didn’t matter. It was FUN. And now, it’s been ruined. There are no quiet corners left to sit and read, write or watch people as they come and go; either they have already been claimed by one gang or another to lounge about on (usually due to them not being able to get a computer), or even if they are free you can still hear them. Wherever you are, there is no escape.

(…..OK, I have just used a variant of the phrase “when I was young -”. I think that means that my 30 year-old self is officially the wrong side of ‘old’. It’s all downhill from here, isn't it? =sighs=.....)

Anyway, today I had time to kill. 
     I wasted an hour in a Weatherspoon’s Pub eating lunch and reading (well, re-reading) a book, then killed 19 minutes ringing up a friend I haven’t spoken to in a while and having a long and detailed chat. 
     Then I wasted some more time meandering in and out of shops trying to find a new pair of headphones for £5 or less that didn’t come with a computer speaker thing attached (a tricky task, apparently).
     Then, finally, in Poundland, I found what I was looking for, which I hadn’t expected to be frank. I had all but given up hope at that point and was heading morosely towards Wilkinson (which I knew had a spiffy set on sale for £7) when I glanced at the door of Poundland and thought; ‘ooh, unlikely, but you never know…’ and there they were! Blue, not too chunky, nicely cushioned and for the low low price of (as the name of the shop may have given away) £1. I was thrilled. Sure, they might have been no good, but c’mon; they were £1! As far as I was concerned, it was worth the risk.

 …..It was as I walked out of the shop with my spiffy (and hopefully of better quality than the price suggested) headphones that I had my big idea.

     Computers have a little thing to plug headphones into, I found myself musing. Or at least all the ones I have encountered do, including my own. As well as my Trusty Walkman, that’s what I use headphones for in the first place. 
     So if a computer happened to be free at the library right then, I could commandeer it, test my new headphones worked, drown out the annoying teenagers and kill an hour all in one go!

     ‘Great idea’, thunked I; ‘go me!’.

So, having had that awe inspiring epiphany, that’s exactly what I did.
     And I'll be damned if not only was there a free computer (unheard of at this time of day) but it actually worked. I am sat at a computer typing this, wearing my spiffy new headphones – which work brilliantly, by the way. Thus far it looks as though I’ve scored myself a first class bargain – and listening to music and I couldn’t be happier.
     Good or what?

 …..of course, now I have had this awe inspiring epiphany of a big idea, there is ne’r a teenager to be found and the library is silent and respectful as a church.
     But that doesn’t matter! 
     What matters is that the next time I need to be in the library, I am READY for them!

 Yep. Go me.
     It’s only taken me 10 years to come up with that.

.....I’m so clever…..

Alice x