Essential Employee

The Governor of my state, Minnesota, called, under emergency declaration, a Shelter In Place order.

Oh Lord, Shelter in Place!

It is unprecedented!

It is unheard of!

It is amazing!

And it is all because of this terrible pandemic. Oooooh it's terrible, so terrible, the most terrible.

And under this shelter in place order we have to stay home unless it is an absolute emergency! You have to need food. You have to be in danger! You have to need MEDICAL HELP!

Oh, or you have to want to get a library book, perhaps a dvd of Chicago Fire season 3?  

My library and my County have interpreted the Governor's order to mean just that. Indeed they insist that it is exactly what the Governor meant.

So do you know what that makes me?

AN ESSENTIAL WORKER!!!!!!

Fear me. For I am a hero.

Step aside all you slacker Doctors and Nurses. Cower before me oh grocery store stockers and farmers and drivers. Get off the roads you with your ambulances and firetrucks, your tool trucks keeping the city going, for I am on the move! I am the key to Western Civilization surviving through this darkness. Scurry before me little people! For Glenn Watson, 82 years old, of Blaine, Minnesota, would like to pick up a copy of Lee Child's seventh book...

AND I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN PROVIDE IT TO HIM!

And so to all of you out there in Internetland, lolling about in your pj's, good for you. Stop the spread. Shelter at home. Do the right thing.

But do not forget there are still giants among you, risking our lives to do the dangerous work that must be done. Do not forget we heroes, we titans, we ESSENTIAL workers, the people who put old bestsellers out on a table for you as you illegally defy state orders to get them. For lo we stride, we essential library employees, heroes of the age, like as Gods among you, tireless, resolute, heroic, bold, irreplaceable, and maybe, or maybe not, infected.