Assembling pieces for book shipping
My kitchen table is surrounded by children. They are all carefully taping round yellow map pins to cards. These cards will then be inserted into the Schlock Mercenary box sets so that each box set will have a “fiddly-bit” or hypernet node. (Actual access to hypernet is not guaranteed.) I would feel a little guilty about this child labor, except for the fact that I keep saying “Why don’t you take a break and go play?” and the children refuse to stop taping. They are having fun. Even better, they are earning money. Gleek has already planned exactly how she intends to spend her money. In fact Gleek is in charge of this operation. She is keeping track of her own time and the time for the two neighbor kids as well. Gleek is very proud of the fact that she has kept working longer than anyone else. Kiki and her friend took a break for video games.
It is interesting to me to listen to the conversations between the kids as they work. Many of the conversations revolve around the math necessary to calculate how much time they have worked and how much money they have earned. There are also exclamations about tape sticking to itself or pins falling on the floor. (If your fiddly-bit pin looks like it was taped to the card by a five-year-old, it probably was.) But as they work, the younger ones spin stories about who they are and why they have to do this work. I think they are currently workers in a factory trying to assemble a million pins before the whole thing blows up. Earlier there was some discussion of the Evil Monkey Master Mind (Howard) who set them this difficult chore. Kiki and her friend have less imaginary conversations. Kiki observes to her friend that this is the only part of book shipping she likes. She likes having the chance to earn money. I guess she doesn’t like having mom and dad stressed and busy.
As for me, I am very glad to see pins being assembled to cards so quickly. I will pay the kids more than they expect because I am so glad to not have to do this by myself. Tomorrow the shipment of books will arrive. We’re expecting 11 pallets this time. We can fit only 6 into our garage. The remainder will have to be shifted to the storage unit as soon as possible. Fortunately we know a guy with a forklift who will work for merchandise and pizza. Then on Wednesday we begin opening up boxes to let Howard sign the covers and to stamp the sketch pages. These boxes will be hauled to Dragon’s Keep for Howard to sign. We’ll also be assembling box sets and shrink wrapping them. Thursday Howard will begin sketching and I’ll be putting together the huge loads of things I need to haul to ConDuit.
I’m so glad the waiting is over (or will be tomorrow afternoon). All the pieces are coming together. It is very affirming to realize that I have the pieces I need to fulfill orders. I like knowing that I can just work until the work is done. Speaking of done, the kids are almost finished. I’d better go get out my cash box.