Broke their legs and had to shoot them

"Do you have a boyfriend?", a 14 year old asked me today, and when I said Uh no, I don't, he said "But how is that possible? You're just so loveable!". Well, if you can find a way to double your age overnight, I told him, then maybe we'll talk. This kid is a little charmer - how come they stop being so charming once they grow up?

He is the senior member of a group of tweens who have just started using the teen area, and while they are very loud and more giggly than someone addicted to helium, I am trying to encourage their being in the teen area in an attempt to phase out my druggie dropouts. Some of the druggies went to school for a few days the first week of September to pretend they actually care, before skipping out and showing up at the library every day at 10am, and some of them didn't even try at all and start at 9am smoking weed and meth in the park before coming into the library. And some of them are over 18 but act like children. Children who say "Fuck that bitch, I'm going to kick his fucking ass, rape his girlfriend, and then go get high", that is.

Any suggestions on how to deal with these little shits? Library brat camp? Lace the meth with something poisonous (wait, isn't it already poisonous?) , and bury their bodies under the trees in the park? Get someone to kick the shit out of them or throw them off a bridge so that they don't die, but have enough sense knocked into them that they become preppies? So many choices, so little time. To quote (ok, to paraphrase) my buddy St Francis of Assisi, "Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I had to kill because they pissed me off".

I also had an enjoyable conversation with J today, who wanted me to help translate the word "culture" into various languages for a collage drawing he was making that had a pink barbie and a skater boy, and then proceeded to tell me his new favourite thing was lesbians. Not for any sexual reason, just because they are fun. Yesterday he told me he wants to have plastic surgery so he has hands where his feet are, so he can be like the weird chick in Aeon Flux. This kid is nothing if not random - and when I even try to mention going away for a week he yells really loudly, so that all the staff in the children's department can hear, "why are you leaving us, you can't leave us and move there forever - how dare you, I thought you loved us!". He may be the biggest drama queen in the mezz, and he's not even an Emo or a Goth.