student workers

I'm not saying that working in a window-less, closet-like office space in the corner of a library makes you a cranky person, but I will say that I'm about to smack some people over the head with my book pile.

Chris is an amazing student worker. He's been here the entire time I have, and he's honestly above and beyond, most the time. Kind of like I used to be.
He's gone for the summer, and one of my two coworkers quit a month ago, so there's a very tangible emptiness in the office. It's just Matthew and I, which is fine with us. We like the quiet, we like the occasional conversation or huff of annoyance that we can both appreciate after a particularly difficult phone call.
Our mail guy is also named Chris, and is fun and talkative and usually his visits are the peak of conversation for the entire day. Around here, the Chris's have it together.

Then there's now, when it's summer and student Chris is gone and the library is swarmed with summer student workers that just so happen to be assigned to our office for various tasks.
Hey, it may be a closet, but it's my closet and I feel rather protective of it. And by "it" I mean the silence. 

What is it about kids these days?
I can really clearly imagine myself saying this as a 70-year-old now, because I just said it this morning.

There are two particular students that are working on reorganizing the microfiche and microfilm cabinets that were shoved into our office many months ago (because we're a closet), and I'll just call them kids because through this experience I've aged 10 years.

Girl: "Wait a minute...[watching me pull a microfiche article from a drawer] are you telling me someone actually wants one of those!?"
Me: "Yeah, it...actually happens every once in a while."
Girl: "Can you believe I met someone that didn't even know what these were? I was like you're trolling me. You're trolling me! Have you never seen a microdot? I've seen a microdot and I hate James Bond!"

Later on.

Girl: "I don't know why we even have to keep these around [the microfiche/film]."
Matthew: "We should just throw them all out. We should throw all the books out, too [dripping sarcasm]."
Girl: "Hey, I don't disagree with that. I mean, some books are just downright useless. I say we throw out all the useless books."
Matthew: "...like what?"
Girl: "Like really old books, stupid books. Some books are just boring, and don't even make any sense. What is the point?"
Matthew: "Um...to document the human race? I think some anthropologists would have some trouble with your standpoint."
Girl: "HA! GOOD THING I DON'T KNOW ANY!"

......


Matthew, to me: "Do you know that quote?"
Me: "No, I don't, what's it from?"
Matthew: "Jurassic Park, it's Dr. Malcolm."
Girl, loudly: "Mmm, mmm. NOT a fan of that."

At one point, the conversation switched to aliens (I think it somehow entangled with the idea that if aliens invaded they could access the books/records of the human race) and zombies. So, there was that.
Then,

Matthew: "I don't really have much confidence in a zombie apocalypse ever happening."
Girl: "What, but...you believe in aliens?"
Matthew: "Maybe."
Girl: "Wait...you're kidding me. Are you trolling me? I can't tell. Are you seriously trolling me? 
Matthew: "...trolling?"
Girl: "WHY DOESN'T ANYBODY KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!"

Despite the appearance of only one student worker, there are actually two. But "girl" is the talkative one usually, although sometimes the boy gets really philosophical and they end up bantering about some mathematical equation or something of the like. I'm going to call the girl Boppity.


Boppity: "I want to see the trinity library so bad."
Boy: "Why? Then you'd go and see it and then what? It'd be over. Any time you seek out and wait for an experience, it just leads us to wanting more experiences. On and on, never ending. It's pointless."
Boppity: "Um...isn't that life? Life is just a big line of experiences."
Boy: "Not if you're dead."
Boppity: "......are you talking about non-Christians?"

Then,


Boppity: "I really want to see Now You See Me."
Boy: "Why, what's it about?"
Boppity: "It's about..."
Boy: "Nevermind. I don't want to know. It doesn't matter."
Boppity "...okay."

Apparently this guy, I'll call him Charles for the sake of this. Because that's his name. But Charles doesn't ever watch movies, I think because he's morally opposed although I've only assumed this information via snippets of conversation.
While Boppity is great enough on her own, their interactions are always the strangest. I don't know how their line of conversation ever proceeds the way that it does. It is very perplexing.

Boppity, coming back from next door: "Ah, the smell of boxes. A cockroaches best friend."
Charles: "What?"
Boppity: "You know! They like the glue on boxes."
Charles: "I like getting high off glue."
Boppity: "WHAT!?
Charles: "..."
Boppity: "No...they [cockroaches] eat it. They don't sniff it."
Charles: "Well, maybe if I ate it..."
Boppity: "You'd be as trippy as a roach!!!!"

Boppity: "Have you ever played that, Charles? Trying to flip cards into a hat?"
Charles, speaking slowly: "Not a hat necessarily, but...something."
Boppity: "What, you don't remember?"
Charles: "I remember. I remember that it wasn't a hat."

I missed the first part of this last conversation, but it was between another student worker who came in for a little while, and it was something along the lines of inquiring about Boppity's "jarring", perhaps a hobby or some sort of side business which I find incredibly entertaining.

Mystery girl: "[something about]...jarring?
Boppity, alarmed: "We call it canning. We don't call it jarring. We call it CANNING. We use metal lids. And oh, my, goodness. Canned deer meat is so very good."
Mystery girl: "I've never shot a deer. I did shoot a big jug of water once, though."


Oh, good. It's almost time to go home.