JUST OPEN IT ALREADY!!!!!

While making a new library card for a patron, last night, there came a sudden noise at the front door. It was the sound of the door handle being turned repeatedly in an effort to get it to open. The patron I was helping noticed it and turned to look toward the door, but the door did not open as one might have expected.

"I know who it is without even looking up," I told the patron at the desk. Just to prove it, I didn't even look up.

After nearly ten more seconds of struggled twisting, the door finally opened and Little Kevin Martin came tumbling into the "liberry" followed closely by his mother, Mary.

Little Kevin Martin is perhaps the most uncoordinated child I have ever met. Don't get me wrong, he's a terribly sweet boy and it's not like he's stupid or touched in the head or anything; he's just eight kinds of awkward. He can't even claim natural teenage awkwardness is responsible cause he's only about 9.

Every time Little Kevin and his mom come to visit, at least one of the following things happen, usually both:

A) Kevin stands on our front stoop and twists at the handle of the door for upwards of 30 seconds in an effort to open it. This actually happens EVERY time they visit. And it's not like it's a difficult handle to open. In fact, most of the time you don't even have to turn it, you just have to pull. Not Kevin, though. He twists that handle like it's gonna spout candy.

B) Kevin falls off the step stool in front of the circulation desk and busts his ass. It almost never fails to happen. He steps up on the stool, which is only two steps high and about a foot and a half wide, puts his books up on the desk to check out. Then at some point before the books are finished he loses his balance, falls off and busts his ass. Fortunately, Kevin is not one of these children who immediately bursts into tears and starts a wailin' at the first bruise. He just dusts himself off and steps back up, ready for round two. Often, he gets it.

Beyond those regular annoyances, Kevin is also not the most observant of children and seems to operate in his own little world for much of the time. For instance, last night I was going back to log someone on the computer and found that Kevin and his mom were standing directly in front of the door leading to the computer hall, entirely blocking it. They were looking at the Young Adult shelves, adjacent to the doorway. I said, "Excuse me," and Kevin's mom moved aside. Kevin remained in the way, engrossed in the book spines.

"Kevin, move out of the way," his mom said. Still Kevin remained.

"Um, excuse me," I said from directly next to him. Kid still didn't budge. After two more verbal attempts to get Kevin to move, his mom finally reached over and gently pulled him out of the way. Again, the kid's not stupid or anything, he's just a little spacey and one track. Or perhaps he's still suffering from the near concussion he gave himself by running headlong into our front door a while back.

I guess it was just over a year ago that it happened. I was on my own at the circ desk, round 5 in the evening, when I heard a tremendous BAMM!!!!!!! It sounded as though something large, say, a bowling ball, had struck the front door. I rushed to the door to see what had happened and found Kevin lying on the front stoop clutching at his head and crying. What had happened is that Kevin had been running full out from his car to the library door, probably in the hope of getting the full thirty seconds worth of handle-twisting before his mom could get there and stop him. However, being terribly uncoordinated, Kevin had tripped on the edge of the stoop and plowed his head into the door. Fortunately, he'd struck a wooden section of the door and not driven his head through one of the glass panes instead. His mother was instantly in a panic that her child had nearly brained himself and began frantically demanding ice from me. Trouble is, we don't really have a machine capable of producing ice cubes. Sure, we had a little dorm fridge in the activity room, but the freezer portion of it could only be set to Broken or Overzealous and had long since filled itself up with frost. So great was her demand for ice, though, that I figured I'd give it a try. I rushed to the `fridge and used a fork to chip some of the frost into a baggie which I then ran back and gave to Mrs. Martin.

Last night, while checking out their usual selection of 900 books, I noticed Kevin had some kind of dragon toy. Being a nerd, I'm a big fan of toys even to this day, though I will say I almost always refrain from buying them anymore just because I have enough useless plastic in my life as it is. Still, the dragon looked sort of cool.

"What kind of dragon is that?" I asked, hoping to learn the name of the toy-line. Kevin immediately began reciting a dissertation on dragons, their origins, habits, likes, dislikes, body measurements, mating rituals, common coloration, favorite foods, turn-ons, ideal evenings, etc. His mom gave me an embarrassed sort of look that also conveyed how unfortunate it was that I had opened this particular dragony can. She began trying to coax Kevin toward the door. Soon this turned into dragging Kevin toward the door. Kevin drug his feet the whole way out, so as to allow him enough time to spread his knowledge of dragon lore.

"Probably more information than you actually wanted?" his mom shouted over Kevin's continued soliloquy. I think the kid talked all the way to the car.