The air is heavy and humid, and I don't like very much. Tomorrow I'm going back to work to wrangle again the boa constrictor that is our pandemic library circulation system, and the goat that it swallowed.
Close your eyes and imagine a very, very large snake. This snake is the normal library circulation system. About as many items check out on any day as are returned, so the snake looks like a snoozing garden hose.
Along comes a pandemic, trippity-tropping across the bridge like a Billy Goat Gruff. Library patrons, bless them, rush to check out everything they can carry.
We will visualize that large amount of checked-out library materials as a goat.
That goat is being swallowed whole by the snake like a classic episode of Mutual of Omaha' s Wild Kingdom when a giant anaconda almost eliminates the host, Marlin Perkins.
The snake will not need to hunt for food for many months or years. The goat is a massive blumpfh in the circulation system. The library staff still has to prepare for the eventual glut of returning books, movies, and audiobooks.
My job, strange as it sounds, is managing the goat. I go inside the snake to manipulate due dates and renewals so the staff doesn't find the entire goat in the book drop some morning soon. I've taken to wearing a khaki outfit complete with pith helmet. This may be the high point of my entire library career. Oh, heck, oh heck, I'm up to my neck.
2 comments:
We're handling the goat, too! And I'm adding baby goats.
Exactly, Kathleen, baby goats. Our snake looks more like reptile rickrack now.
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