Perhaps it’s the lackluster economy. Maybe it’s the utter disappointment about the staggering incompetence of our elected representatives in Washington D.C. Whatever the reason, I just can’t help but notice people seem to be generally less upbeat these days.
Nowhere is this more evident than a public library on a Tuesday afternoon. Last week I had forty minutes to kill before a meeting and decided to pop into my local library to do a little last minute preparation.
Talk about a microcosm of society. Every single person I encountered looked angry, sad, depressed or bored. I didn’t see one smiling face the entire time I was there. It was almost as if I walked into a screening of The English Patient. Hope was nowhere to be found and only gloom, doom and despair filled the cavernous room.
On that day the library appeared to be one giant petri dish of unforgettable sights, sounds and odors. For the most part, everyone fell into one of the following five categories: slacker students, homeless men, sleepy septuagenarians, religious zealots and computer guys.
The late teen and twenty-something students all wore iPod miniature earphones while staring expressionless at computer screens or textbooks. A steady stream of homeless men traipsed in and out of the restroom as the pungent aroma of body order, urine, fecal matter and desperation wafted through the air.
Amongst a group of fifteen individuals in the computer room taking advantage of the free internet service were three bearded men in turbans and galabiyyas. No doubt these three fine upstanding members of the community were updating their Facebook profiles or checking the American League box scores.
As I continued to stroll through the facility I observed two older men sitting in chairs with their heads tilted back and thunderously snoring. Why doze off in your stuffy apartment when you can do it in an air conditioned library in front of hundreds of strangers?
Quick aside: for many years I have found the antics of Computer Guy to be very amusing. This is the guy who thinks it’s entirely appropriate to buy a $2 cup of coffee, plant himself at a corner table near an outlet and spend the entire day at Starbucks working (or browsing the internet as the case may be).
Apparently, Starbucks has started to prohibit this sort of activity because there were dozens of these guys in the library on that fateful Tuesday afternoon at 3:15 p.m. Not only were the customary laptops, wires and cords everywhere but one middle aged man even had a 23″ monitor and small printer set up. It was truly a sight to behold.
As I look back, the forty minutes I spent at the local library was both illuminating and enlightening. However, next time I’ll probably head to a cemetery or funeral parlor because the people will likely be a little more upbeat.