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A Trip Downtown
Once a week I run the payroll at work and pay the bills. Every check I write has to be co-signed by either the Mayor, his secretary, or the city treasurer. So each week when I’m done running my checks I have to take them downtown to the Mayor’s office to have them signed. I often run other errands while I’m there. Usually I ride down on my bicycle. It saves wear and tear on the environment and on the old car I drive. On rainy days I have to forget the environment for a while and drive.
The latest payroll fell on a very rainy day. I walked to work as usual anyway, hoping that perhaps it would clear by the time I had to make my journey. It didn’t. I loaded the checks into my backpack, left the bike in its sheltered spot by the staff entrance, and walked home to get the car. Since I live near work, this did not waste too much time.
I usually swing by the house on the way to the Mayor’s office anyway. Payroll day is also wash day. A load of clothes put into the washer as I leave for work will be ready to switch to the dryer by the time I run my errands. By lunch time the laundry is ready to switch again. When I reached the house I went in just long enough to load the dryer and put another batch of clothes into the washer.
Then I started the old car. It had been having trouble starting lately. I had given it a dose of fuel injector cleaner the day before. Today we would see whether that had helped in the start-stop driving downtown. The car did fine.
At the Mayor’s office the Mayor was in a meeting. His secretary was there to sign the checks as usual. She often has visitors hanging around her office. Sometimes it’s the chief of police, at others it might be the city parks manager, or perhaps it will be the treasurer.
This time the visitor was someone I had not met before. He was the exterminator who sometimes sprays city facilities for bugs. The secretary introduced us. Like many people in town, he has often seen me biking or walking around without knowing who I was. When he found out that I was the city librarian, he commented about my working at that expensive library. There are still a lot of people around town who believe that our library is too big and expensive for a town our size. He allowed that his wife, a school teacher, disagreed with him on that. It was nice to know that we have friends around.
The conversation turned to knee replacement surgeries. The exterminator had had one recently. He began describing the procedure in some detail. The Mayor’s secretary got a bit squeamish at that.
After finishing with the check signing (and with paying staff insurance bills, which were due—the same secretary who signs the checks also accepts them) I headed for the exit, checking the library’s mail box to see whether we had gotten any millage payments (we hadn’t) and saying goodbye to the ladies who staff the desk in the main area. Then I headed for the bank.
I have to go to the bank periodically on library business, but this time I simply wanted to deposit my own paycheck. As I approached the bank from the parking lot, a library patron recognized me. She offered me a ride back, apparently believing that I had walked or ridden my bike in the rain. I assured her that even I would not do something like that, but I appreciated the offer.
The bank was as quiet as I’ve seen it. In part this was because I did not have a batch of change from the library to run through the noisy change sorter machine. On the rare occasions when I’ve been there on a Friday there has usually been plenty of activity. Fridays are when most of the area’s workers have their payday. This is the day when the bank rolls its little popcorn wagon into the lobby and offers free popcorn to all who come in. They are generous about loaning the wagon out for community events. The library has borrowed it before; I tightened some loose bolts on it before returning it. I wouldn’t have minded a bag of warm popcorn on that rainy day. But it was just another banking day, not popcorn Friday.
From the bank I headed to the post office to buy rolls of stamps for the library. I’ve heard it said that post offices are seeing a serious decline in their business in favor of online communication. If that’s the case, then our town must be behind the curve. Our post office is always busy when I’m there. The undersized parking lot is usually packed. Access has been worse than ever lately with the office’s remodeling project.
The remodeling presumably explained why the place where I usually bought stamps had three men inside busily breaking up the tile floor with hammers. Every few moments a few flying bits of debris rattled against the low plywood partition placed over the doorway to shield passerby. The hammerers were making short work of that floor.
The stamp office had been moved to a temporary building out to the side. As usual there were several people there buying stamps or sending parcels. A local country station on an employee’s radio blared out “Beer for My Horses.” This led to my having that song (not one of my favorites) on my mind for most of the rest of the day.
Back in the parking lot I met an acquaintance who asked whether I’d be in the library that evening. He was holding a training session in our Community Room the next day and wanted to make sure a PowerPoint presentation he had would work on our presentation equipment. I assured him I’d see him then.
Finally I drove back to the house. I should have gone straight back to work. But if I did that, it meant that in the evening I would have to drive the car the few blocks back home. It’s just too absurd to me to drive a car such a short distance. I would rather walk. The rain, which had virtually stopped while I was downtown, was coming down steadily again. I pulled on my backpack, spread my big umbrella (supplied for free by the bank a couple of years ago—one of the directors had seen how much I walked and said I would be needing it), and headed back to work. Rainy or not, it felt like a pleasant day.
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The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls who, when he found an especially costly one, sold everything he had to buy it.
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