The Spindle's End

The library may be an excellent place to spend an afternoon with your significant other when you're a teenager: it's a safe public environment that your parents will not object to, and is filled with entertaining things like computers, books, music, and movies. However, should you choose this venue for your courtship, do keep a few things in mind:

1. You and your girlfriend should not disappear into a bathroom together. At the very least this will get you banned from the library for at least three months for indecent behavior.

2. When caught in said bathroom by your girlfriend's father, you can expect some verbal abuse and anger. Please be understanding, even if his threatening to beat you up is not terribly thrilling. Put yourself in his shoes in twenty years with your own fourteen year old daughter and her older boyfriend. Granted, a public library lobby filled with witnesses is not a good place to have this altercation as it attracts all sorts of attention.

3. Do not threaten to shoot your girlfriend's father. While he has threatened you with assault, you have now threatened him with assault with a deadly weapon. Guess which one is more likely to get the cops called immediately?

4. When being questioned by the police, try to be respectful and do not lie about who you are and how they can contact you in the future. You've just made them very suspicious, and they suspect they should hold you and question you further. Perhaps back at the precinct, because you must have a reason you're lying and giving them a hard time in general.

5. When the handcuffs come out DO NOT RUN AWAY. This is resisting arrest, the most serious charge thus far. However, if you do feel the need to prove your track star qualities, I would suggest not running towards a pedestrian heavy street and/or a place like a bus station. There are likely to be fine upstanding citizens who may feel inspired to help the police. The chances of your making a clean getaway just got worse, not better.

6. When the police do catch you, DO NOT HIT THEM. This is assaulting an officer. You have now so thoroughly pissed them off they will charge you with everything they can, treat you like shit, and generally do their best to make your life as miserable as they can. And all this goes on your record. Won't Mom be proud?

Kids these days! What are they thinking?

On a side note: working in an urban library is never dull for long! However, keeping your sanity does require a certain amount of black humor to get through the day.