I Shall Be a Temptress

5:30 AM
I was able to contact Macy. She was rather excitable at first over the phone--kept calling me her 'friend' that had finally gotten in contact with her.

5:32 AM
The excitement died down rather once she figured out it was me. BUT! She has agreed to come back to work. Excellent. I can't be doing all these heavy-lifting duties by myself. I can't even reach the top shelf. The books came in a couple days ago; I've been busily filling in the bottom half of the shelves. It fills me with a deep sense of satisfaction to see all the books neatly filling those awful gaping holes where books should be.

8:09 AM
And what do people do? They insist upon coming here and making MORE gaps in the shelves. Go buy your own books!

8:11 AM
Few things are more horrendous than an unreturned book. Not returning books is where all evil begins.

8:12 AM
Because once you don't return books, you figure there's no harm in taking other things and not returning them. When you don't return a library book, you're breaking a PROMISE. It's stamped into every library book. The due date promise. And once you break that promise...you can break any promise.

8:14 AM
Therefore, not returning library books should end in a far more severe penalty than a 50 cent fine.

8:15 AM
In fact, I shall add to my list of requirements I made all those months ago. I found the list in my desk.

6.) Thou shalt return books or I shall hunt thou down with an axe. Or a scythe... I shall be...the Grim Reader.

9:00 AM
Stacking books into shelves doesn't work if a cat is asleep in the back of them.

9:01 AM
I'll have to go to the store and get some hydrogen peroxide. Ow.

10:13 AM
I have made a successful venture to the store and back. No one noticed I was gone. No one assumes that there's no librarian in a library; they just assume that, if they can't see a librarian, the librarian is hidden behind some shelf or other.

10:15 AM
I would have been to the store and back sooner if I'd ridden my bike, but my knee made an unpleasant popping noise when I tried to get on it, so I walked. And every step I made, it popped again.

10:16 AM
Don't people shoot horses when their knees don't work properly?

10:28 AM
I just looked it up. They either shoot the horse or they sell it to a glue manufacturer. The book had pictures and everything.

10:29 AM
I need tea to wash away images of horse anatomy that was never designed to see the light of day.

10:35 AM
Let's see, what do we have here? Numi tea. I've never had it before--I bought it on a whim. Whim--whimsy, whimsical. Related to the older word 'whimwham,' which means 'fanciful object.' The saving grace of the internet is that it has things like online etymology dictionaries.

10:37 AM
Unicorns are whimsical. I wonder if they'd get shot once their knees gave in?

10:38 AM
I must think happy thoughts. Like tea.

10:40 AM
Good heavens, there are instructions on how to make the tea on the back of every Numi tea packet!

On the back of the Orange Spice tea, it says...let me see, where are my glasses...I know I just had them a moment ago because I was reading the list of requirements earlier this morning...

10:43 AM
Oh god! What if I left them in the grocery store? What if I never get them back? I've only got one pair! I'm a librarian, I can't afford new glasses!

10:44 AM
And new glasses are all made into stupid designs! With pink swirls on the rims!

10:45 AM
I found them. In my breast pocket.

10:46 AM
Ahem. "Moonlight Orange Spice tea. For the Perfect Cup: Pull fresh water from the orange grove spring."

...We haven't got any orange groves up here. Or springs, for that matter. Of course, the instructions do specify THE orange grove spring. Perhaps making this tea involves some sort of epic journey.

"(otherwise, drinking water will do)." Oh. How boring. "Bring to a boil--" what idiot doesn't know that making tea requires boiling water?--"and pour over a sachet of Moonlight Spice." No, I think I'll pour it into an empty teacup and see how that tastes.

"Steep 5-7 minutes. Due to the delicacy of the white tea, careful attention is needed to capture the full taste." Hmm.

10:55 AM
I don't think this teabag is for me. Perhaps another one? Let's see..."Ruby Chai: Tempt water to a boil..." Now, this is more like it.
I shall be a temptress. I am wearing a skirt; skirts are tempting.

10:56 AM
I've also undone one button on my shirt. Now, what is it that temptresses do? Ah, yes. They sing. That's what the sirens did in the Odyssey. The library is empty, too, so...

11:02 AM
There was one man on the a computer over in a corner I couldn't see. It's ok, though, he left soon after I started singing.

11:04 AM
How long, I wonder, does it take to tempt water in a boil? It doesn't even look mildly interested in me. Not even the faintest bubble.

11:10 AM
I give up. I've tried. Now I'm going to return to the tried and true method of torturing it with intense heat until it boils.

11:20 AM
Ah, the peace and tranquility of docile water and a tea bag.