Crime and Punishment (but mostly crime)

Mmm, raspberries.

Growing up, there was a woman in our neighborhood whose self-appointed duty was to make life miserable for anyone younger than 18. She was a rumor-monger and loved to pass on gossipy bits to anyone who would listen regardless of how unlikely the rumors were. If she caught you doorbell-ditching her house, she would make you come pull weeds out of her garden. Apparently she didn't realize that by affixing a punishment she drew many more ditching attempts because now there was an actual thrill involved - to avoid the danger of being caught. Gordon and Seth and I came up with the world's greatest doorbell ditching method and we used it on her numerous times without repercussion. We each took a large crab-apple from a nearby tree and threw them one after another. The crab-apples arrived at her door within a fraction of a second of each other and gave the appearance of someone knocking on the door. But now we had the advantage of already being 50 feet away from the door, providing us additional valuable seconds in our escape. We did this at every opportunity.

One day I was at home alone and the phone rang. When I answered, it was this woman. She asked to speak to my mother. I told her she was not home. She called back very soon thereafter and asked to speak to my mother again. I told her she still wasn't home and I didn't know when she would be back. Within ten minutes, she called back again. I told her that no, my mother STILL wasn't home and she asked me to take a message. She asked me to tell my mother that she had seen Gordon behind Storehouse Market throwing dirt clods at the fence. I nodded to myself. Dirt clods. At an old wooden fence. Crisis. It's really no wonder she was desperate to get through to my mother. I hung up after assuring her that I would indeed pass along the vital information. Which I did not.

Aiding and abetting, it's what I do.

Three and a half books

My library is customer service oriented

Among the benefits of living in a small town is the delight of using a small town public library. Let me tell you about mine. When you first approach the doors to the library there are better than even odds you will be met by a sign saying that the computer system is down and the library is closed. Due to the frequency with which I've seen this sign, I believe what it really means is "We're tired of your crap and are taking the rest of the day off."

I've gathered that the prevailing attitude of library employees is "irritated" because there are signs plastered all over the interior of the library with such aggressive statements as "NO CELL PHONES IN THE LIBRARY!!!!" (Really? Will they interfere with your delicate electronics? Gotta be bugged by cell phones. You are not dumb!) and "DO NOT LEAVE CHILDREN UNATTENDED!!!!" For the benefit of you, the reader, I have been conservative with my usage of exclamation points. In actuality there are many more.

I hope you are getting an idea of how RN this place is. My daughter was preparing a bibliography for a school report and had neglected to get the page count from a book at the library that she had used as a reference. I don't know why the page count is required, but I called the library to ask for help. I told the librarian the name of the reference book and asked if she would tell me how many pages were in it. Here is her response: "Let me get this straight. You want me to count every single page in that book so I can tell you how many pages are in it?!"

Attention Payson City Library employees: There is this new contraption they've started using in books. It's called "page numbers." It's kinda neat because you can tell your friends "Look on page 347 for some interesting bit of info" and your friends no longer have to count all the pages starting at one on up to 347 to know which page you're talking about. They merely scan through the book until they find the page with the number 347 at the bottom and then they know they have found the page they were after. Here's a fascinating trick: If you go to the last page in the book and look at that page number, that's how many pages are in the book! Cool, huh?

"Yes. Please count all the pages in this encyclopedia for me. I'll wait right here."