9 - 11 a.m. 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. ; 3 - 4 p.m.

What I'm doing between questions: listservs about RDA...ugh, ugh, ugh. Once I've had my fill of that, I move over to the monthly name-changes listserv and start compiling a list for me to fix.

11:00

• The children's librarian arrives at work covered in hives; we rejigger the schedule so I'm covering her hour while she sees the doctor
• Local paper? [I swear he follows the mailman in every week so he can be FIRST to see it...but he's a nice old dude, so I don't mind digging it out of the mailbin for him]
• Oh my goodness...a seriously large, mouth-breathing patron wanders past...I'm afraid to make eye-contact with him....
• ....in fact there's a lot of random, kinda creepy people here this morning
• "Can you scan and then email this document?" [well, we don't have a public scanner, and we wouldn't email it to anyone for you...] "Office Max would put it on a disc, but I need it emailed." [once you have it on a disc, you can upload and send....] "Oh, I wouldn't even know how to do that." [then I guess you're SOL, toots, though I wish her luck as she heads to all the printers in town]
• Local paper is returned
• One of our longtime regulars comes over to schmooze me about the HUGE lottery payout that didn't happen last night [like I care? I don't ever buy tickets...and he swipes at me for that. DUDE!?]
• 30 Days, Season 1 [all the copies in our system are checked out, and of course she needs it by next Thursday... I put 'em on hold, but suggest NetFlix and the new video store]
• Lined paper [we don't have...] "The last lady gave me some out of that notebook over there." [damn it! OK, we are NOT supposed to do this....but I tear out a couple more sheets for her]
• WSJ, and a pencil
• And WSJ returns (so does the pencil)
• Cranky patron arrives with a long list of CDs he wants to order, and he's not cranky today!
• Other cranky patron storms off cuz we're talking too much
• Map of [town]
• Help with printing from Hotmail
• Help with resume layout

3:00

• Holy cannoli what a freak-show out here! And that's after the cops came through and vacuumed up a couple of recurring-problem-patrons
• State tax form, schedule M [I print it off for him] ; and he tells me all about doing his taxes for 52 years, and his wife's poor health...lovely little man
• Pay to print
• Stapler
• [phone] Nearby tiny library doing a survey about whether we loan ereaders, and also whether we use IM for reference [no, and no]
• Former-director-now-local-history-volunteer is looking for dark blue dots (round stickers) ; all we have are green ones
• "Do ya have a piece-a, uh, paper I could, uh, write on?" [I silently hand him a couple of the scratch papers about 3 feet from his him] ; "Can ya, uh, show me how the copier works?" [sure...sigh]
• Magazine/Newspaper volunteer-shelver walks by and whacks me on the shoulder with a rolled up paper...while I'm helping the copier guy
• Copier guy now needs a dictionary....
• How to print, and "what happened to those five free pages we used to get?" [omg that was, like eons ago, my friend, and it's because people took advantage and just didn't pay at all]
• OK, this is weird: I've seen about 6 guys walk past the desk, at separate times, in the last hour who either were using crutches or limping badly...is there something I should know?
• Hallelujah!! I get to go home!!