This is a chemical burn

It seems like the kids are taking the “I just don’t want to die without a few scars” mentality of Fight Club a liiiiiiittle too literally these days. I just helped a teen out this afternoon by giving him some gauze and tape for the “cut” on his hand which actually looked more like a chemical burn, even though I did my best not to look at it or touch it and wiped my hands with an antibacterial wet wipe for about 5 minutes afterwards. I told him to go the doctor because it looked quite infected, but I’m guessing that is the whole point, if he wants to get a pretty scar like Tyler and Jack in the Fight Club movie. What’s even worse is that this is not the first time I’ve seen life copying art here in my teen section this year – a couple of months ago I saw a kid with a huge healed-over scar on the back of his hand that he claimed was from someone putting an eraser in salt and then rubbing on his hand, which I highly doubt. I know kids are stupid but damn, this just takes their stupidity to whole new levels of stupidityness. When looking for some Fight Club quotes on the internet, I actually came to a site that suggested where and how to buy the lye which can then be used to create a rather lovely scar. Madness, I say. Although I’m not sure who is crazier, the kids, or Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote:

I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.

But if you’re more of a movie person than a book person, you can find the whole screenplay here online at:

http://www.fightclubquote.com/content/fight-club-screenplay/fight-club-screenplay.php which I find quite interesting, given the fact that I thought screenplays, like books, were copyrighted, and you couldn’t just publish the WHOLE thing online.

On an entirely different note, I just discovered a new favourite blog, The Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette: http://libetiquette.blogspot.com/ that I think you should all visit immediately, including the kids who are playing with lye at home, because I’m sure that’s not good etiquette.