My standing orders are to check
Our standing orders in.
A volume missed our run will wreck,
So losing one's a sin.
For every journal we receive,
I pencil in a mark.
I've no intention to deceive
You: doing so's no lark.
A group of drawers I've been assigned,
Of check-in records full,
Which I update till I go blind --
Or bonkers, it's so dull.
To mark up every check-in card
It seems, will be my fate,
Until it turns my mind to lard --
When do we automate?!?!
Originally published in SUL News Notes, October 30, 1992.
c 1992, 1995 Fleabonnet Press for the author.