People keep asking me tax form questions. Simply because the library supplies all the forms and booklets, people seem to think I'm a certified bloody accountant. I've never even done my own taxes before; my parents filed them for me when I was away at college out of state, and then I got married and Eric insisted on doing them himself. When people begin asking me about obscure documents for entrepreneurs, I end up just grinning and nodding like a moron as I shrug my shoulders. I have no idea how to answer their questions; I feel rather useless.

And then there are the people who ask me questions that I can answer, but after I do, they reply, "Yes, but..." and put the very same question to me again. I try to explain twenty different ways, but they always walk away shaking their heads, visibly frustrated with me, the idiot who couldn't understand a simple query. One elderly gentleman wanted to know how to make our web-based catalog display the text-based catalog screen. I told him that the machine in question was only set up to use the web format; if he wanted the text one, he'd have to use the computer right next to it. Confused, he said, "But I want the other catalog."

"Yes, sir, you can use it on this other computer." He didn't understand. I was a foolish little girl who couldn't grasp the superiority of the text catalog and make it appear on all of the computers. When I explained that some people prefer the web-based one, he became almost angry. Can you imagine?

So I wandered over to the kids section, figuring I could at least answer any questions put to me by an eight-year-old. ("The Pokemon books are all checked out, son...") Unfortunately, I was immediately ambushed by a woman who was looking for a book which she swore she'd already turned in, but was showing up as late on her record. It was a "Tot picture book," and I started to lead her to the shelves where they are kept, when she stopped me. "No, we get all of his [her son's] books from this shelf," she said, heading for the board books for babies. No amount of convincing could make her believe that the book in question was not a cardboard one designed to be drooled upon, so I left her to her own searching at the first tactful opportunity. Frankly, those searches are usually a waste of time in the juvenile department anyway; most of the time, the book has been long lost by the child who checked it out.

Anyway, the whole day has gone like that. I've almost reached the point where I'm actively avoiding patrons who look like they need assistance; the help they need will not be available from bumbling me, I'm positive.

We lost many files on the Macintosh. So much is gone that we've pretty much started over, though Eric was able to potentially save some stuff with Norton; we won't know if they've really been saved until we reinstall the applications with which they were created.

Eric's taking the opportunity to weed out some old versions of software and just plain not reinstall others. Clarisworks, for example, is history, as is a crappy design program we picked up at Walmart. We're going to run lean and trim! I'm going to pick upper the newer edition of Outlook, as it was probably the older one that caused the crash.

We got the newest edition of Finale, our music notation software, for Christmas; only problem is, we no longer have the serial number from the older edition, which was lost in the crash. Eric had to call his mother to see if she still had it; asking for the number without panicking her over the computer problem was an interesting feat. She tends to overreact, and if Eric had told her the hard drive crashed, she'd probably assume that the computer itself was dead and gone forever.

Thankfully, most of our music was backed up on disks. That would have been the biggest loss. Eric is now shopping around for a tape backup system; we've learned our lesson well enough for today.

This week's young adult survey is proving more popular than last week's, which only got one vote (R. L. Stine, in case you were interested). This week I asked how many hours they were spending online every week. Seems like most of them so far spend between six and eleven hours on the net. I'll be curious to see how many of them say "Twelve or more." Like I'd have to do. Sheesh, I'm attached to my net connection.