the public library is very educational

When Oedipus and I do the leash-walk thing, I like to take him to the library, because being a dog is no excuse for illiteracy. Now, I'm not stupid -- I'm pretty sure dogs aren't smart enough to read me bedtime stories or anything -- I just want him to be able to recognize stop signs, or read James Frey novels.

Anyway, the prototypographical library contains three groups who would otherwise never interact in the wild -- old retired men, small children, and homeless people. Today, as usual, I was in the children's section studying up on my Doctor Doolittle, when a bearded dude who reeked of urine and had maybe three teeth stood up and shouted, "I have a bigger cock than the President!"

Man, you should have seen it -- soccer-moms dove out from between piles of books to cover their children's ears, like goalies in the World Cup. It was now quiet in the library. I mean, it was quiet before, but now it was like crucial-moment-in-a-movie quiet. How can you follow up such a bold claim? The guy was idiot-grinning and holding his hands up like Jesus before the disciples, and boom, guess what could possibly be better than a crazy guy in the children's section of a library? That's right: two crazies. ANOTHER guy piped up -- this one was wearing a dirty pair of jeans with a gigantic rip in the crotch, like they were attacked by a fat man who liked to eat denim. Thank God that hobo preferred boxers over briefs. So this new one says, "Liar! Everybody knows the president of the United States is elected based on penis-size."

I'm looking around like, what the fuck is going on here? At this point, the two hobos began to circle each other in a sort of martial-arts crouch, hands ready to strike. The wanna-be president is still boasting, saying stuff like, "My dick is so big, it has a nickname for ME," and crotchless man responding to everything with, "You ain't president, you stupid crazy hobo," which is the most amazing pot-calling-kettle moment I've ever witnessed in person.

Other random homeless folks began forming a ring around the two combatants, chanting "Sneech! Sneech! Sneech!" in unison. I really, really wish I understood what was going on, but just when we thought the first annual Hobo Debate was going to end in some sort of sneech fight to the death, the librarian behind the checkout counter fired a shotgun into the ceiling and threatened to call the police. The homeless folks scattered like underage kids at a party, and the rest of us could only stare blankly at each other, trying to make sense of all we had just seen.

Oedipus and I might take a break from libraries for a while. Reading is just too stressful.

dls