Salamander
Fire Walking

I’m sitting here at Big Name Book Store behind the charity gift wrap table. I am by myself. That’s pretty nearly literal, as the store is nearly devoid of customers. At least half of the non-employees who are here are located in the café drinking stuff out of tall white paper cups with sippy lids and socializing with others or studying behind piles of paper that probably account for at least a medium sized sequoia. This is the beginning of my participation in our shelter’s now annual book wrapping for cats, which usually nets us the most money of any fund raising effort we do during the year. We will be here at the store nonstop from the Black Friday through Christmas Eve, opening to closing (excepting a few rare dates that the store has booked other groups).

My shift today was to have been from 2:00 through 6:00. I got a call at 10:30 that the store accidentally double booked today and a Boy Sprout group was going to be there until 4:00. What’s done was done, and we certainly have plenty of other dates to make up for the loss of today’s prime time shopping, but it was too late for me to make any other plans. I sat upstairs on the lawn chair in the Jacuzzi in the master bathroom with Satan’s Little Fart Cloud sleeping in my lap while I read the first few chapters of Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix to kill time. While in this unlikely position I got a call from the person who was supposed to man the table with me; apparently since we would only be doing from 4:00 to 6:00 it wasn’t worth it for her to come all the way down to the bookstore and would I mind doing it solo? Nah, no problem.

It’s been my experience that kids’ groups (cheerleaders, Girl Sprouts, and T-ball teams, for example) are notoriously lousy at doing full shifts. They show up, socialize in crowds of eight or more behind the wrapping table, acting immature and scaring away potential donations. The kids usually aren’t well chaperoned and tend to get bored and pack up an hour or so before their shift is over. I rather expected that this group of Boy Sprouts was going to follow this predictable course of action and so I arranged to be in the bookstore at 3:00. I was lucky enough to get a seat in the café (the only seat open) with a strategic view of the wrapping table, so that when the Sprouts started to decamp I could swoop in and start earning for the cats.

The Sprouts, however, did not follow my plan of action. Well mannered, with as many adults as boys in attendance, they actually behaved professionally and were doing a good job. I settled in with my gingerbread latte and Charles de Lint’s The Wild Wood and began my hour-long wait for 4:00.

As 4:00 approached I started to get restless. I began perusing the displays around the wrapping table waiting for signs that they were pulling up stakes. At five minutes after the hour I finally approached the table and told them I was here for the next shift. I asked what time their shift ended, and they told me 5:00.

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Shift over. I manned the table between 5:00 and 6:00 and earned about $3.00. What a freaking waste of a day.