I'm Allergic

If there is something that you can count on a library for, it’s having books. Usually. Unless you go to a library for the blind, for example, where they have tapes instead of books, or the main branch of the New York City public library, where I believe they do have books, but they hide them from the public so that nobody will read them. Otherwise, you are generally in for a big helping of books when you set foot in a library. The same is true of the relatively small college library that I am forced to study in at times. There are books everywhere. Old books. Now some of you may level the claim that you know I hate libraries and it’s ludicrous to suggest that I spend time in one when you have never even seen me set foot near one. This may be true. I have publicly expressed support for the idea of libraries in theory, but personally choose to avoid them because I hate hardcover books and libraries are full of them. This rule generally holds, except that I'm breaking it this week because it's the end of the semester. But I have now discovered why it is exactly that I hate going to the library, and I think you’ll all agree that this is a very debilitating situation. It does not involve the fact that lots of old and frequently boring books are generally sitting right within attacking distance. Or that these very books are usually sitting next to books that look exactly like them, making for a monotonous and not very visually stimulating atmosphere. But it does have to do with books as a presence. Turns out, I am allergic to the library. That’s right, the study sanctuary that is supposed to enable me to complete all my work in a timely manner by giving me the quiet and resources needed to concentrate nice and hard is making me ill. And I’m blaming it on the books, since they are the only thing that make the library different from anywhere else. Now it might seem that my problem is really an aversion to books, or more so, an aversion to doing boring and repetitive work, however I am ONLY allergic to libraries. There are several bookstores that I consider to be my own personal space, and I have been known to spend large quantities of time in them without ever getting sick. In high school I frequently used one Barnes & Noble as a library, spreading myself out on the floor with a huge stack of books and a computer. This did not sit well with the staff but my feeling is they opened themselves up for the abuse by putting chairs on the premises, implying that people were welcomed to stay as long as they could, since everybody knows that once you sit down in a comfy chair you don’t immediately get up. (They have since removed the chairs and I think it might just be my fault.) Point is, I am the only college student in the world who actually can’t spend time working in the library because working there makes her sick. There is clearly something very wrong with this situation. Some kind of mean genetic joke is being played on me. There must have been some in-charge type people sitting around upon my inception saying: “When she’s old enough, we’ll send her to an old college so that she can sit and attempt to do all her work in a tiny dorm room or a house made of cardboard with somebody’s subwoofers vibrating from downstairs and some girl next door singing off-key and when she gets so frustrated that she is actually willing to spend time with hardcover books and quiet working people at the library, she will discover that she can’t. And why? Not because the total quiet annoys her (because it does), not because Dewey decimal system makes her angry (it does), not because creepy people in black trench coats always find the library the perfect time to strike up conversation with her. None of the these very plausible things will keep her from doing this very college-y thing. No….we’ll make her allergic! That way, when people ask ‘why don’t you go to the library?,’ she can reply by saying ‘I can’t, I’m allergic.’ This will entertain us in-charge types to no end.” That’s what they were saying.
Even in this troubling situation, however, I think in the end I may have gotten the last laugh. I mean, you can’t deny a medical reason for avoiding work. It’s medical. That’s means it’s serious. And also it can’t be denied by non-afflicted people. So I may be the only college student who is legitimately allergic to the library; but at least it’s the library and not, say, the coffee that keeps me awake and sane (comparatively) when I’m sitting under a vibrating subwoofer and listening to that off-key girl next door. That would have been a truly cruel joke.
-Esmee