Bartleby the essential worker

Though I had planned on observing my Governor's sensible, but increasingly casual-seeming STAY AT HOME order by actually staying at home and having a bit of layabout, all posting on this blog a lot and drinking coffee constantly with my wife, I was stunned to find I am...

AN ESSENTIAL WORKER.

So here I am, at work, in a library, which is closed, and I am feeling very, very important.

The emergency service we are providing is one in which, say, for instance, season two of Facts of Life is on hold for a patron; well they can call us and we can prepare it for them, and then they can call us again, and we can put it out on a table in front of the library so that they can pick it up.

Did you know that both Molly Ringwald and George Clooney were at times in the cast of Facts of Life? I tell you this in case you had any doubts about me doing essential work here.

So naturally it has gone to my head.

The phone rings at the library. 

Clearly I am too important to answer that.

Can I shelve these requested books on the request shelves?

No. It's beneath me.

How about going upstairs and pulling some requested books off the shelf for an eighty-two year old woman who has decided to work her way through the whole Debbie Macomber ouvre one more time?

No.

I am an ESSENTIAL WORKER. What do people not get about this? I am like a Doctor or Nurse or something, but probably more important.

Stop asking me to do stuff!

I am going to stand in the middle of our first floor, as far away from everything I can, touching nothing. My hands hang loose in the air. I take deep breaths and conserve my energy. I am counting down from a million, holding back the storm of deaths. Don't talk to me. Don't go near me.

I will tell you when my moment has come.