The Library

I went to the library today.

I did NOT have a good time.

The library is only about two blocks away.  It should be easy for me to stroll down, return/grab a few books, and come back.  However...

I have to cart a very heavy portable oxygen pack and a very, VERY heavy messenger bag holding my books.  I had ten, so it was like lugging a bag of dead badgers.  I need my walker to do this - I can't carry both - and maneuvering the walker around cracks in the sidewalk and stray rocks leaves a lot to be desired - every few seconds I was getting my wheels hung-up or it was threatening to tip over on me.

When I got there, it was a bitch getting into the place.  I'd press the large button for the automated door, but by the time I got back behind my walker, it would already be swinging shut.  Okay, there's the revolving door, right?  Well, YOU try to get a walker through a revolving door and tell me about it...  Finally, there's the regular, garden-variety door.  I had to turn my walker sideways, open the door, lodge my walker in it, and force everything through doing this weird inch-by-inch step with the oxygen container on the edge of falling out of the basket, and the messenger bag alternately smacking me in the knee and getting stuck.  I was red-faced, sweating and in a pissy mood by the time I wiggled, grunted and forced my way in...

...with easily two dozen people standing around doing nothing but twiddling their thumbs and watching me.  "Thanks for offering to help, but I can do this all by myself, people!  Thanks anyway!" I said, and I was rewarded by watching them all get the same, "Oh..." look on their faces.  I hope they all develop boils on their genital.

Then, I found out my books were late, and I owed them $2.40.  I didn't mind paying the fine, but I DID mind not realizing they were late - I don't forget things like that until, well, I forgot something like that. 

I struggled through the place trying to juggle the oxygen, the messenger bag, my purse, and the walker.  I ended up grabbing books I didn't really want just to get something to read and get the fuck out of there.  I suppose I can spend at least one evening reading about one Chinese familys' odyssey adjusting to life in San Francisco in the '80's...and I'm afraid to look at the others I have in the bag...

I had the same problems with exiting the building with a small crowd of different people watching me struggle without offering to simply HOLD THE FUCKING DOOR FOR ME...  (What's happened in America?  Have we all become so fucking self-involved that we can't hold a fucking door?)

I managed to make it back home where I was sweating, in pain, and in the mood to poke infants with my bony fingers just to hear them cry.  Because I live around lowlifes who can't be trusted, every door in the place has three locks - a regular lock and two deadbolts.  Having to unlock them all is a bitch, but I want to protect what little I have from folks like Michael who have no qualms about lifting anything that isn't nailed down or protected by a guardian troll, so I had to put down the messenger bag, pick up my purse, dig for the keys, unlock the locks (all the keys look alike, of course), open the door, pick up the messenger bag, drag my walker inside, unattach myself from the portable oxygen, find my regular oxygen, and sit my irritable ass down for a few minutes before putting everything away and remembering that I FORGOT TO STOP AT THE STORE FOR SOME FUCKING MILK...

I had my oatmeal plain, thank you, and my tea the same...