Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Programs, Programs, and More Programs (and a Problem)

During the past few weeks, hardly a day has passed in which I didn't have a program scheduled. This week, "my" Writers' Circle met on Tuesday, I showed the monthly independent film today, and I have a sing-along to Broadway showtunes tomorrow. As I've written in previous posts, I enjoy scheduling and publicizing various events, bringing people into the library, but now I'm exhausted - and I'm looking forward to a quiet day on Friday.

This afternoon I panicked when, while I was setting up the cumbersome equipment for the movie, the presenter for my Broadway showtunes program unexpectly entered the meeting room, quickly introduced herself to me, and asked to test the piano. Much to my dismay, she pronounced it "broken," untuned and problematic in the foot pedals. Nearly hysterical, she informed me that the audience would be extremely disappointed unless we could repair it before the 2:00 event. While I was trying to digest this information, and untangling the wires for the film projector and the laptop, another staff member informed me that a presenter for yet another possible program was returning my telephone call (naturally, our longstanding game of telephone tag was destined to continue, since I couldn't possibly take the call at that time).

I spoke to our Branch Manager about the piano situation. After gently admonishing me for failing to ensure that the instrument was tuned prior to the event (I admit that I had simply taken this for granted), she asked another employee to obtain the names of piano tuners from the staff at our Main Branch. Unfortunately, none of the specialists she called were able to come to the library at a moment's notice. This means that tomorrow I'll be in the embarrassing position of apologizing to our audience (which will, according to our registration sheet, consist of approximately 35 people).

I'm trying to assure myself that our patrons will enjoy themselves despite the apparently unmusical quality of the instrument (not being the least bit musical in any sense, I can't distinguish between a tuned piano and an untuned piano). I'll have to wait until 2:00 tomorrow to determine whether my guess is correct (unless, by some miracle, a piano-tuner suddenly arrives to rescue me tomorrow morning). But now, more than ever, I am looking forward to Friday.

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