I Was A 27-Year-Old Teenager On A Mission! (Pt. 5: Specimen Sighting!)

TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: If you were thrust into a dance contest, what kind of moves would you unleash? Chime in after today's post! - Erin

Continued from yesterday . . .

Friday, July 15, 2006.

1:33 p.m.

After the thrill of Slimfast sneakage, I've decide it's time to get my eyes back on the prize. If I'm going to masquerade as a teenager, I should find a specimen to emmulate. Luckily, I just overheard someone mention going to the top floor, and that someone had the unmistakable, cracking voice of a teenage male.

The tenth floor is off limits to the public, and I can only assume the librarians are conducting official library business involving ritual bloodletting, small woodland creatures, and maybe, I don't know, Bigfoot. I think this is as reasonable as any other explanation, really.

After briefly considering busting onto the 10th floor (maybe later), I arrive in the ninth floor atrium, where I take a seat on a wooden bench against a wall and wait. Sure enough, a group of teenagers enters. These! These are my people! Or at least they once were and will soon be again. I must listen closely and heed their style and dialect if my literary criticism is to mesh seemlessly with theirs in a mere 90 minutes. They are not quiet for long.

"I'm on top of the world!" one hulking doughboy exclaims, spinning around, arms out, eyes on the skylights. (Note to self: Make grand gestures, possibly involving bastardized mocking of the movie Titanic.)

"We could have a dance contest!" a girl says, busting a move on the marble floor of the atrium. (I hope somehow dancing is called for during the book group! Maybe I will teach the kids some "cool new moves" like The Running Man and The Cabbage Patch.)

"Dang! This is phat!" a boy observes, looking up at the atrium skylight. (Phat, indeed, young sir. Phat, indeed.)

1:49 p.m.

The teens have made their way around the ninth floor, which also includes an African American history exhibit. On the way out, one of them whistles sharply, a single piercing note. I look up quickly, not because I'm startled by the whistle, but because I have simultaneously, coincidentally, had a great, fabulous, genius idea -- a eureka! moment that will transform my writing. The boy laughs. I'm pretty sure he laughs at me, thinking Ha ha, look at the old lady with the computer, afraid of a loud noise. In reality, I'm probably just projecting and he's probably just thinking about a girl or a video game or a corndog. Nonetheless, I have forgotten what my eureka! idea was, and my back is starting to ache. I am getting OLD. As I sit here, heinie on hardwood, spine against stone, my joints are creaky, my forehead is crinkly, and I could really use some Bengay.

2:05 p.m.

I am so bored. My very boredness is making me feel like a teenager. They are always bored, aren't they? And my computer is running out of battery juice, meaning I may be forced back into those ill-made cubicles very soon. I need something to perk me up! I need adventure and excitement! I need to . . . ride the escalators!

The Harold Washington Library has a stupendous series of escalators, the likes of which I have seen nowhere else, in which two chunks of moving walkway are necessary to get from floor to floor. The ceilings here are not that high, but halfway between floors you must get off on a platform, take a hard left turn, and get on another escalator. All that stepping on and off! It's double the thrill!

I find the escalator on the ninth floor, no problem, and ride it down to the eighth. Somehow, though, at this point I cannot find the escalator down to seven. I see one labeled "Up to Ninth" but nothing about going down. Hmmm. This is odd. Perhaps I have stumbled upon some magic escalator vortex that will transport me into a land of fright and wonder, a la The Neverending Story. This calls for an investigation! And I think I have just the 27-year-old teenager for the job.

(To be continued . . . Tune in tomorrow when the escalator investigation leads me to ponder the mating habits of '80s hair metal bands!)