Yowza

Fridays are generally my busiest days, which is nice, and exhausting. It's great because teachers are taking advantage of passes and sending students to check out books, and if they're lucky enough in terms of time, they can bring their classes all at once to check out and have some reading time.

When I was still lucky enough to be blessed with a clerk, Cindy could check out books while I could help with other tasks, like teaching, or helping to monitor students on the computers. One day, a few years ago, both Cindy and I were there, as well as two teachers. I was helping a student in the fiction stacks and completely missed a fight starting in the corner near my office window.

One of the teachers, luckily, was a black belt in I'm not sure which martial art, and broke it up. If he hadn't been there, I don't know how far it would have gone.

So, now that I am unfortunately without a clerk, I am somewhat at a disadvantage. To the best of my knowledge there's only been one other fight in there since I've worked in that library, and I was the one who broke it up. I've since been told not to put myself in harm's way, but it's difficult to overcome the parental instinct to stop two young people from hurting each other.

It's a lot of territory to cover. And a lot of jobs to do.