"Customer Service" - Pshaw!

This morning, I planned to use my rare and precious time of Isaac being home with Amelie during her morning nap to spend some quality time with Elizabeth at the library. (I would rather have used this valuable time to go for a run or go shopping, but this was very important too.)

We have 3 close city libraries that we frequent. We knew our neighborhood library didn't open until after lunch, so Elizabeth and I headed off to the one that opened at 10:00. We pulled up. We parallel parked on the street (we're in the city, remember). I unloaded Elizabeth, hauled out the bag of books to be returned, and braved the cold wind down the sidewalk and up the steps to the library door. Once arrived, I could finally see a sign on the door: "Closed Thursday, January 29, for Customer Service Improvements."

Lovely. A wasted trip. But I could redeem this - I loaded Elizabeth and the books back into the car and hustled to the other side of our house to another library. Unfortunately, that one didn't open until after lunch.

Okay. I could handle this. Since our limited free time was used up in the search for an open library, we returned home empty-handed (but still lugging the dumb bag of books).

After Amelie's last nap of the day, I decided to load up both girls and head to our neighborhood library, which I knew would be open by now. So I strapped Amelie in her carseat, zipped Elizabeth into her warm clothes, and headed out yet again. Great! The lights were on and there were cars in the parking lot! I parked, balanced Amelie's heavy carseat over my elbow, added the diaper bag and the bagfull of library books, grabbed Elizabeth's hand, and sherpa-ed my way up the steps to this third library of the day. And saw the sign on the door.

"Closed Thursday, January 29, for Customer Service Improvements."

Let me tell you about "customer service," you feeble-minded, under-funded St. Paul public libraries!