Tax day 12-2

This post is full of typos but it was so busy I didn't have time to pay much attention to typing!

Do you need help to print? No never mind we figured it out.

Older man: "I'm returning this book. It's overdue. We were out of town, and my daughther called the library..."
I don't want you to waste your time here, you'll have to take it up with Customer Service eventually so you may as well not tell me the story.

What is my PIN? How do I get onto a computer? Can I print from any? I have a picture but I want to make it bigger, how would I do that?

Audrey Hepburn stops by to say hello and ask if I am "ready for Easter" (she is very religious). She asks this about every Christian holiday and as a non-Christian I never know how to answer this.

I know it's last minute but is there any chance you can help me find tax forms for Kansas? I lived there part of the year and here part of the year. This turns out to be a long thing and I am so afraid of giving tax advice and the patron (or me) getting burned! She's really nice though. At the end she asks, "There isn't going to be anyone helping this late, is there?" I give her the phone number of anotehr branch where the AARP volunteers are today but I don't know if they do state returns especially because Texas has no income tax.

I'll be with you in just a moment, thanks for waiting--but they walk off. A coworker checks on them later at least.

My mom wants a book, can you help her find it? It's the new John Wayne bio, we put her on the waiting list. I also check the son's card to see if he has any more CDs on their way. She and her son are always really nice.

Get the Kansas tax lady on a computer so she can do her own research. She's excited.

Phone call: Do you have the form you need to get a tax extension?
I can't, officially, tell you that this is "the form you need," but it sure sounds like it.

Kansas Tax Lady has a meeting with one of our...staff members? volunteers? I don't even know because our branch manager is so horrible that she never bothered to introduce this person even though she is apparently here like 10 hours a week. I know she does something with grants but I don't know what and I have never, to the best of my knowledge, seen her.

Do you have the form for an amended tax return?

Coworker: "I don't know how into cooking or not into cooking you are, but I thought you might want to see this book about vegetarian slow cooker recipes." I'm not into cooking but it's nice that she remembers I'm a vegetarian so I feign interest. She also says "Tax season isn't as bad as it used to be. We used to put a box of the extension forms outside overnight on April 15 and they would all be gone by the next morning."

Mom and toddler son at the copier, someone is saying "stop, stop" over and over again in a high, whiny voice. I assume it's the son, but looking over I see it's the mom.

Form 2210, 2 copies, and 1040-V, 2 copies. The latter I don't know why we don't have because it's the thing you have to send with your check, so the IRS really ought to let us order it. I read off the title of the former to make sure it is the right thing, but when I ask "Does that sound right?" she says "I don't know, but it's what I have written down, so just print it anyway."

Meet the mysterious grant lady for the first time. She is looking for Kansas Tax Lady so I infer who she must be, but she doesn't introduce herself. Maybe she has to remain as anonymous as possible to avoid inadvertently revealing her secret superhero identity.

All the patrons have their phones turned up so loud today! One makes the same noise mine does when I get a text message and I briefly fear that somehow I accidentally brought my phone out to the desk with me, even though I am wearing a skirt and don't have any pockets.

A little science fair bean plant is on top of the ready reference collection. I ask my coworker about it and she says she found it forgotten at the print release station last night and is hoping someone will come looking for it today.

Phone: Power Play by Danielle Steele. Add her to the waiting list but it's not too bad--10 people, 5 copies.

"I had a library card but I think I lost it."
"If you go over to Customer Service they can get you a new one."
"Is it a dollar?"
"Yep."

An email comes out that they are changing the city's website, which contains the library site, at 4 p.m. this afternoon. I work until 9 p.m. so it is probably going to be a long evening.

Our copier doesn't take pennies, can she give me five of them for a nickel? The exchange goes smoothly but I am moderately stressed out just out of habit because this lady goes from civil to shouting at you at the drop of the hat and it's very hard to see it coming. She makes me very nervous.