For Your Consideration

I want to share a little story about consideration. I go to a Fairfax County library almost everyday. It's either the one in Centreville or the one in Fairfax. The one in Fairfax is new and very nice. You can tell that a lot of money was put into its design and construction. But just because it's nice doesn't mean nice or considerate people are always there.

A few weeks ago, I went to the second floor of the one in Fairfax. This library has about 30 internet personal computers (PCs), and eight of them are on the second floor. You get two free 30 minute sessions. (If no one's waiting, you can be on the PC for over two hours during one session!) I sat down and started my session. After surfing for a while, I heard some snoring. For a minute, I thought I was dreaming because no one could possibly be snoring like that in the library. But as I looked at the other PCs, sure enough there's a portly guy leaning over in his chair, sleeping and snoring. I'm not talking about light breathing. I'm talking about 'movie sound track' snoring. It's about 10:30 am and the library just opened. Why is he in there asleep? I figured he'd just gotten off of work and had dozed off. No big thing.

That was 2 weeks ago. Now every time I've gone in there, he's wobbling all over his chair, snoring or he's laying on the keyboard knocked out. It's very irritating. Some of the librarians come by and wake him up, but he eventually drifts back to sleep, resuming his nostril noise. Uggghhh! How inconsiderate!

So yesterday, I go to the Fairfax library, and Sleepy was not there! I was so excited. I got to surf in peace. I didn't have to hear that 'hogs gone wild' snoring. I figured he must have been off and was at home disturbing the peace. After a while, I finished up my session and left the library. As I walked past the benches in the front of the library, what did I hear? I looked to my right, and what did I see? Sleepy leaning all over the bench, knocked out, snoring! I guess he was being considerate by keeping his snorefest outside. Maybe he was waiting for the library to open and fell asleep. I don't know. Whatever the reason, whether it was intentional or not, it was very considerate of him to spare us his sleep symphony.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking snoring. I may snore in my sleep. It's not something people do on purpose. But a little consideration for others goes a long way sometimes.