Rain, How About a Truce?

This morning I calculated that roughly 85% of June thus far has been drowned in a deluge of chilly, gusty rain. I know it's only been a week, but it's a week following the month of May, during which parts of Massachusetts actually shut down for an entire week due to flooding, which was of course due to- how did you guess? - more rain. Seriously, why does Mother Nature hate us? June is for lovers, not for haters. Please bring back the sunshine! I should be wearing skirts and sandals, not cords and wellies. If I promise not to complain about the heat or humidity or the electric bill from the air conditioner, willyoupleasejuststopwiththiseffingrain?!

Anyway, because I've been cooped up inside for the majority of the last two months you can imagine the kinds of things I've resorted to doing to occupy my time. Yesterday I found myself stacking toothpicks in a teepee formation and sticking it together at the top with the gummy stuff you get on the envelopes full of Valu-Pak coupons. This was only to distract me from my roommate's perverse obsession with reruns of Gilmore Girls, and I was very grateful when the sun came out and I could head off to frisbee.

At least work provides a little respite from the boredom. My work days are nothing if not diverse. I spent the first half of today working on the following tasks:

• Searching for books on Jerry Lewis's fundraisers, Botticelli's Birth of Venus, and topographical maps of the Alps.
• Helping a very old man (who lisps) make double-sided copies on the finicky risograph machine and then fetching him paper towels to wipe toner ink off his pleated khakis.
• Nervously wondering how one of the puffer fish's giant front teeth got broken off.
• Finding fantasy baseball scores and Red Sox video clips for an enrichment class.
• Telling a kid off for running around the library with a book about the life of Christ held up in front of his face, yelling "I am the son of God! I am the SON OF GOD!" (even though it was kind of funny, and also- why do I have a book on the life of Christ? This library is just full of surprises.)
• Filling out end-of-year logs for the exceedingly useless mentor program and the semi-useless Library Council meetings.
• Kicking the crap out of the old Canon scanner because it froze no fewer than 4 times while trying to load pictures for the 8th grade mural project.
• Handing out pizza and ice cream and soda at the volunteer party while the health class watched films about nutrition next door. (I think one kid topped out at 10 slices- I informed him that if I found piles of pizza puke around the building I would know where to find him for clean-up duty.)
• Asking a 6th grader why the bottom of his backpack was chalk white, only to discover he had spilled orange juice in it the week before and when it started to smell, he coated the entire bottom of the bag in his father's roll-on deodorant.

I can't wait to see what the latter part of the day brings. For real, is there any other job that requires such strange shifts throughout the course of one day? If you think you can match it, I'd love to hear about it because I can't imagine a much stranger occupation than this.

Countdown: Only 12 more days!