Ah, the exciting life!

People think of libraries as peaceful, sleepy places where nothing much happens.

Hah.

There I was, about 12:30 this afternoon, peacefully eating my lunch and playing Sudoku on the web, when a loud voice rang out from the PA: “Everybody please evacuate the library immediately!”

Well, we have regular fire drills so we knew what to do: starting from the back of the library we swept all the patrons before us, out the front door, and chivvied them over to the far end of the parking lot. It was cold, and drizzling, and everyone hoped against hope that some kid had just pulled the fire alarm and they’d allow us back in shortly.

Then we noticed the fire department had the street cordoned off. Someone told us there was a bomb scare: a suspicious package had been found at the gas station on the corner, and we should all to go home for an hour!

I figured it’d turn out to be a false alarm – Stow is a pretty small target, after all – so I went peacefully home and took my dogs for a walk. Sure enough, an hour later my boss called to tell me I had to come back to work. But still nobody knew what had really happened.

Turns out that the whole center of town was paralyzed by a duct taped box of used kids’ toys!