(no subject)

The problem with my habit of leaving spare change in the middle of the floor forever is that, out of the corner of one’s eye, a penny looks an awful lot like that suspicious brown spot in the middle of the floor that turns out to be a HUGE SPIDER.*

Probably I should pick that penny up now, but I’m too lazy. This could go on for days.


*Mostly I’m pretty neutral toward the spiders around here, but after they hit a certain size I tend to kick them out. This is a small enough room without eight more legs taking up space.

I Shelve Books

Today, just as I was pulling my second cart out to shelve, the manager all but tackled me.

“AIDE! You are hereby commandeered to handle the checking-in of all items until such time as people stop acting like comically overcaffeinated cartoon animals or particularly slow-witted sheep!”

I paused, and looked back at my nicely sorted nonfiction cart rather longingly. “But … but I shelve.”

“There is a woman here,” said my manager, “who has been arguing the same exact point with me for the last ten minutes, in magnificent counterpoint to her screaming child. In the queue behind her,, I can see the young boys who insist that their internet card is not working despite every attempt to explain that they reserved their computer for an hour from now are returning to the desk. Lurking just past them is yet another member of the Peaceful Chakras Through Science Energy Meditation Of Harmony Of Soul Mind And Body, who are homicidally irate because somebody else got here first and claimed their conference room today for the first time in six months. And more people are arriving. A murmur of discontent ripples through our patrons even now. And I was here six hours before we opened in order to haul heavy books around.”

“Hand me that huge bin full of returns,” I said.

So most of my day today was spent doing desky things, instead of being the Shelving Fairy. My manager and her sidekick calmed some of the worst of the mob. It was not the peaceful zen that my job usually is, so I was a little tense. Dammit, I am a shelving aide. I Shelve Books. That is My Job.

Thus, when I got every single book, DVD, audiobook, and board book* checked in, I saw I had half an hour before it was time to sweep through the library to pick up scattered magazines and kick out patrons.

My eyes wandered toward the neatly-ordered nonfiction cart.

And then, like the spark that ignites the powderkeg, my need to Shelve Books ignited my resolve. I charged forward, seized that cart, and blasted toward the front of the nonfiction section.**

Thirty minutes later, an empty cart shot out of the last nonfic stack, ridden by a maniac with a scarf twice her length flapping out behind her.

I even got all the magazines I picked up sorted, god dammit.

That's right. I help my managers and still find time to do what I do, baby!


*WHO THE FUCK CHECKS OUT BOARD BOOKS? Why? Did they sit down to read it to their kid but run out of time, so they had to stick a bookmark in it to mark their place? Did they feel it needed more time so that it could be properly savored? Did the thin film of secretions from countless other babies, as well as the Pigpen-worthy cloud of germs floating around each page, not put them off?

**In our Liberry, Section 1 of the Dewey Decimal System means “Computer Programming and Bullshit.” No philosophy, no theology. Just self-help, conspiracy theories, and Sunshine For The Humorous Latter-day Saint Soul. Although it is fun to see the number of groundbreaking studies on personality types that go around—I wish I had the brains to make huge piles of cash out of what is, essentially, an internet quiz. They’ve already got “What Color Are You?” and “What Flavor Are You?”; I’m waiting for the groundbreaking “Which Doctor Who Doctor Are You?” and “What Event In YOUR Life Will Kanye West Interrupt?” Life Programs, with several books written by a PhD in Powerpoint presentations who is listed as a “renowned speaker” on the inner flap.