Long couple of days

So yesterday I was pissed at the boy; today I've ramped down to "disappointed" in him for yesterday's blow-up (which leaves out my disappointment in myself, of course). Today's penance for us was a trip into town to workout at the gym, followed by lunch at home and then 6 hours spent in Sparky's bedroom sorting, cleaning, and throwing things away. I was motivated to finally work on this project not only by yesterday morning's fireworks but also because Purple Heart is coming on Tuesday. I always feel bad for making them come here for a small load to pick up. This time, they'll have two good-sized boxes, minimum.

So, yeah: six hours. In a room. Together. While Sparky examined every piece of paper, every item in his room smaller than furniture, everydamnthing and did the famous "Keep"/"Throw Away"/"Give Away" sort into medium-sized moving boxes. He filled the "Throw Away" box one-and-a-half times. He filled the "Give Away" box. And it took a full hour, possibly more, to empty the "Keep" box and put about 80% of it away properly.

I did nothing but grit my teeth and try to give him helpful advice, and then shut up. For six hours. Next project: the under-eave area off his room--his "Zone"--which is much smaller and has about 1/8 as much crap in it (I think). We'll do that...later. Next weekend, next month...whenever my eyes stop burning from the dust stirred up from today's project.

I got a call at about 5:00 from one of the librarians who worked today. The call was to warn me that the circ system was up and down all day today, with several Fatal Error messages. Maniac (the caller) was on the phone with the system HQ people five separate times, and was trying to figure out how to reset our server when she called. That's my first stop tomorrow. Because, yes, to make the weekend a pure trifecta, I work tomorrow afternoon. We're open for only three hours, but during the school year it means a 12-hour day compressed into those three hours.

And there's something in the air: Maniac confiscated the library card of one of our "problem internet users" because his mother had requested (by phone, earlier this week) that we refuse to let him use the internet anymore, and he called the police on her. On Maniac, that is, not his mom. He called on his cell from the Reference Desk. The cops never showed. Nice. They never called to see if we were ok, either. Fuckers.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow afternoon. I already was called 'disrespectful' on Friday for calling Fatso/Mr. Stinky on his abuse of time on the internet. Tomorrow, I should be full into All-Out Insolence by 2:00!