What Have I Done?

There are three places around town that I can walk to by myself: the Target, the dentist and the local library. (Okay, there’s a Pizza Hut on the way to Target, but since starting my diet lifestyle change I don’t go there).

Since the weather’s finally warming up and since I don’t like spending money if I can help it, I’ve been hanging out at the library while my mom’s at work. I was there last week when I saw a sign calling for “shelf elves”–people to put books in their proper place. So I fill out an application, talk to the volunteer coordinator, and promise to come back Monday afternoon for my first day of work.

I show up on Monday about fifteen minutes early. The volunteer coordinator is still at lunch–while I wait, I read a little of Laying Community Foundations for Your Child with a Disability. When she comes back, she takes me into the board room. I fully expect to learn how to shelve books.

“I hope you like the job I’ve got for you,” she says. Maybe she wants me to file things. “Probably,” I say.

“Well, you’ve put ‘writing’ as a special skill on your application. What do you think of writing grants?”

I’m honest; I tell her I’ve never done grantwriting before, but would like to learn.

“Great!” she says. She tells me the library would like to get more public speakers in. To have more programs for kids and senior citizens. She entrusts me with copies of grants she’s written, a book on grantwriting, and a booklet of speakers that are “out of our budget” but are the kinds of people the library is interested in nonetheless. Thrilled with my new job (which is something I really have wanted to learn to do), I cross the street to have lunch at Runza.

At home, I curl up with my how-to grantwriting book and think, Wait. While some stuff sounds like fun, I hope the library hasn’t given me as much power as I think they have. I’ve never planned huge projects before, especially not ones that cost money. I honestly couldn’t tell you what kinds of things people in the community want from the library. And dude, I was in the slow math class. (Budgeting? Oh, snap).

So, I don’t know about this. I’m still excited, but I hope I’ve misunderstood something and that my new job is really more secretarial than it looks.