I was reading some book recommendations on a Facebook thread for nerds and I decided that I absolutely had to read “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” by Stephen King.  I love Stephen King and I’ve read a lot of his books, but somehow this one had escaped me.  I looked it up on the catalog of my local library and was super excited that they had two copies.  It had been a busy day and we had already eaten dinner.  I had lost my temper with my kids about 85 times that day so of course I thought it would be an excellent idea for us all to go to the library together and pick out books and movies to take on our beach trip.  My eldest declined my invitation.  He is smart.

We arrived at the library and my toddler threw a fit in the parking lot because I told him he had to leave his fistfuls of small toy cars in the minivan.  Ok, no big deal, just bring them with you so they can get lost. Whatever.  We went inside and I caught up with a friend I ran into while my kids ran around the movie section loudly exclaiming over all the movies they wanted.  I got them to settle on one movie each and then we headed over to the children’s area.  I put them in the little blue chairs in front of the two computers, put the headphones on their heads, found the little paint-by-numbers game they like, and then I bolted over to the adult fiction section.

It took me about 90 seconds to find K in the fiction section, grab “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,” and pick up “Into the Water” as I passed the new release section.

When I got back to the children’s section my kids were still happily playing their paint-by-numbers game.  I passed them to get to the children’s fiction area to get a Hardy Boys book for my eldest, and I caught a WHIFF that stopped me in my tracks.  It didn’t fully register until I had walked about 10 feet past the kids.  I looked back at my toddler, hoping it was just a really smelly fart, and I said, “Did you poop?”  And he sweetly and innocently answered, “Yep.” Then he climbed off his chair and I saw THIS:

Yes.  That is a little blue kid’s chair covered in poop.  And yes, I stopped to take a picture of it.  Thank God we were the only people in the children’s section at that time of night.  Also, I took a picture of the back of my toddler.  Want to see it?

That picture does not do justice to the mess that was up his back.  Great.  I stood there for probably a full minute rubbing my forehead, trying to decide how to handle this situation.  Any normal mom probably would have gathered her children, scurried out to the minivan, done a half-ass cleanup job and sped home.  Me, I’m an IDGAF mom.  I’m also the kind of nerd who was eyeing my stack of books and DVD’s, not willing to give up on my date with “The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon” later that night.  So I held the toddler at arm’s length, marched over to the checkout desk, and announced, “Hi.  My kid just pooped all over himself.  I need to go out to my car and get his diaper bag.  Can you please watch my daughter for a minute?  She’s over there at the computer.”  The shocked young librarian blinked at me, then turned and headed around the desk toward my daughter.  “Oh no, you don’t have to go over there or anything.  Just make sure she doesn’t get kidnapped.  You can do that from right here.”  Then I headed out to the minivan to get the diaper bag, still holding my toddler at arm’s length, passing two families with young children who were sure to be headed straight toward the poop chair.

I got the diaper bag and tried to decide where to clean up the toddler while a scared young librarian was probably judging me for being a shitty mom who would leave her 4yo in the care of a stranger.  I decided on the library bathroom, which thankfully had a changing table.  The mess was WAY worse than I had thought.  It was everywhere.  It took me about a half a package of wipes to clean up the mess, which I had to do in stages so as not to get any poop on the floor or changing table.  Now, I wasn’t expecting my toddler to shit all over himself at the library that day, so I did not have an extra outfit for him.  I also didn’t have any disposable diapers.  What I did have was the empty plastic sleeve that had once held disposable diapers, which I placed his shitty clothes into, and a diaper cover and insert, which I put on the toddler.  Cloth diaper + shoes = instant outfit.  I folded up the changing table and noticed the diaper pail underneath, with a sign that said, “Please place all diapers and wipes in this container, NOT the trash can.”  I looked over at the trash can with a shitty diaper and shitty wipes piled on top, and decided I was not going to fish them all out and put them in the diaper pail.  Sorry, library employees.  I washed my hands with as much soap as the auto-sensor dispenser would give me, and headed back into the library to clean up the chair, knowing that it had probably been discovered by one of the families that came in while I was running out to the car.  It was gone.  I dodged the looks of the other parents there as I grabbed my 4yo and our stack of books and DVDs and headed to the desk with my mostly naked 2yo.

“Where’s the chair? I was going to clean it.  Did you have to clean it?  I’m so sorry.  This never happens.  Thanks for keeping an eye on my daughter.”  I rambled on as the librarian concentrated super hard on my stack and spoke not one word.  I could hear the other librarians in the back doing that laugh that people do at work when a customer comes up to the desk and tells them there is a chair covered in human excrement in the children’s section of the library.  One of the girls who wasn’t rendered mute by the sight of toddler poop came out to the desk laughing and I asked her what happened to the chair.  “It’s out back,” she said, “they’re looking for the hose.”

I promised them I would make a hasty donation to the library as I gathered my kids and my books and my DVDs and hightailed it outta there.  But before we left the grounds, I had to get one more picture:

Support your local library, folks.  They do more than just re-shelve books.