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Mother and Child
One freezing cold morning in January, it was my turn to do what we call "set-up." I was responsible for turning on all of the computers; setting our date-due "guns" to the correct date; creating the password for the day for people who use the Internet computers; turning on lights and equipment; getting a door count and voter registration count; checking in the day's newspapers; counting the money and preparing a deposit to go back to our library system headquarters and putting a video in the surveillance TV. While I was doing all of this, I noticed a woman standing outside our doors. She had her toddler with her. He was dressed in his sleeper pajamas with little footies and nothing else between him and the freezing cold air. He was running around on the cold concrete sidewalk. It would be an hour before we could open our doors. She had a car she could have sat in and possibly had the heat on, but they stood outside for the whole time.
Finally at 9:00 when we opened the door, she and her toddler came into the library and conducted their business. Unfortunately, she is one of those people who always seem to be getting overdue notices for things they've "brought back." (And who after arguing with us for what seems like hours and leaving in a huff no matter what reassurances and promises you give them, they return with the afore mentioned item a few days later and no remorse for having screamed and yelled and called us names). This of course was one of the screaming and yelling days for her. Having been through this several times before with her and after observing her stubborn behavior concerning standing out in the cold with her baby, we had very little sympathy. She left in a huff.
That baby is all grown up now. The only ill effects he seems to have suffered are that he has about as much common sense as his mother.