Just after storytime finished this morning, while I was still surrounded by a crowd of happy and chatty two and three year olds, my coworker Jane brought a large cardboard box into the children’s room and put it behind my desk.  Not too unusual, just another delivery of something, so I didn’t think much about it.

And then, after all the storytime families had left and the room was quiet, I noticed that the persistent (and recently rather loud) tinnitus in my ears had graduated to a new level of annoying:  my ears were going beepbeepbeep  beepbeepbeep  beepbeepbeep.  “Oh, dear,” I thought to myself, “I guess I really DO need to see a doctor about the tinnitus – this is awful!!!”  And I started getting really worried.

And then I realized that the beepbeepbeep  beepbeepbeep  beepbeepbeep could be traced to the box that Jane had delivered.  A-ha!  The delivery of bookmark timers (which will be summer reading raffle prizes) had arrived!

But my joy at their arrival soon changed to absolute frustration bordering on beginning insanity.  There are one hundred bookmark timers in that large cardboard box, and each bookmark is in its own little white box.  AND I CAN’T FIGURE OUT WHICH ONE IS BEEPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

[It should be noted here, as I quietly go insane, that the tech services staff had lived with this box for two days before figuring out where the beeping was coming from…and that Jane brought the box down to me so that THEY wouldn’t go insane.  :)]