Out of the Mouths of Babes

Come a great number of substances, not all cutesy or attractive despite the adoring looks of their mothers upon returning the mounds of items to the library. It is often a cause of mystery to discern what creature (dog, cat, rabbit or baby) has chewed upon the covers and pages of our books. And apparently these chewings can be or often are invisible to the parent. "What? My/our/the child didn't do that! It was like that when we checked it out. What are you suggesting?"

Truthfully, what I am suggesting is a) feed your dog/cat/rabbit/baby more often and b) supervise the items we've lent to you such that they return to us in roughly the same condition. Apparently what I'm thinking places the word "roughly" in a position of prominence.

Oddly enough, despite the drool/food/etc left on our books, our keyboards, open to the same hordes, are relatively clean, as proven by a science fair entry from one of our juvenile patrons. Taking samples from shopping cart handles, gas station handles, the mouth of his dog, the bottom of his shoe and a keyboard, he proved, with Nobel aspirations, that our keyboards are cleaner than suspected and more so than the other locales. The loser? Bottom of his shoe but I'm convinced he sampled it before coming into the library.