I’ve never been good under pressure. I honestly don’t understand how people function with something like that. Perform surgery, shoot the basketball, high stakes situation or not, I’ve never been able to wrap my head around it. I wish I could handle it better. Hell, I even picked a career that I thought would have the lowest amount of pressure. In case you were wondering it was a librarian (but I genuinely enjoy reading too) so I’ve lived my everyday life with no pressure. I just greet the customers and put away the books. Sounds easy, right? Well, it was going great until Bert came in. I liked Bert, don’t get me wrong, but he’s the clumsiest old man I’ve ever met. He started volunteering at the library three days a week about two months ago, and I swear he somehow finds a way to accidentally hurt himself each week.
The first was a paper cut, well more of a severe one. A trickle of blood ran down his hand and apparently, the blood bothered him, and he nearly passed out. Next, he tripped on the rug while walking in and hurt his knee. After that, he slipped in the bathroom after it was mopped and busted his shoulder. I think you get the point by now.
While I appreciate the help, I get nervous coming to work when he is in. I’m afraid he’s going to have another incident. By some miracle, he managed to go two weeks without an incident, but I knew it was probably about time for another one. I took every precaution possible. I taped the rugs down, made sure the floors were dry, and I just had him greeting customers all week. But I didn’t take into account him choking on his sandwich. The rest of these incidents were relatively low stakes, but now that his face is turning a light shade of blue, I hope I can get whatever’s lodged in his throat out.