Or, why it has been hard to think about reenacting, cooking, sewing, or much of anything this week.

Technically, I work for a historical society, not a museum, but the madness is pretty much the same, just with more books. It’s a fun season, when the visitor numbers at both the museum (school groups and conferences) and the library (genealogical tourists) are ramping up, construction has begun, and the fiscal year is ending and the new year’s budget in planning.

It’s a lot to have going on at once. We also just had two positions open up in the library, so there’s been a lot of filling in as the receptionist and the page, and interviewing candidates for the positions.

To all this, add rain: this is when Providence is at its wettest, and while the weekend looks to be lovely, yesterday was drenching, with thunderstorms. As a result, the “pit” outside the library basement door flooded, and overflowed into the basement. That led to wet-vacuuming and the arrangement of a sump pump for the pit. As my Buildings and Grounds Super was arranging the cords and preparing to plug in the sump pump, he slipped and fell 12 feet into the pit.

I got the call in a meeting with the Executive Director and Director of Finance, and ran back to the library. My guy was OK, and they hadn’t called an ambulance, despite clear instructions. Instead, one of the Librarians took him to the quieter hospital in a better neighborhood. He’s OK, if by OK you mean alive and walking and talking.

He’s not OK, in the sense that he broke his arm at the wrist, seriously bruised his shoulder, hit his head, and will be in a cast for 6 weeks.

If that wasn’t madness enough, here comes the cherry on top: the cleaning assistant has left for Las Vegas for two weeks, trying to break into comedy. So we have a plan to hire someone else we know temporarily.

One of the visitor services managers at the museum, though, has made it plain that she doesn’t see why the B&G Super won’t be back in and working by Friday, Mondy at the latest. I’m looking forward to explaining that we don’t expect a man who fell 12 feet into a concrete pit to come straight back to work with a broken arm, though I know her initial reasonableness and expression of concern will be followed—quickly—by temper-tantrum demands for all the tiny fallen sticks on the lawn to be removed posthaste.

Perspective, folks: safety first. We have to fix the pit problem. It functions as a fire exit from the basement, so we can’t cover it up. It’s behind a fence, so in theory it’s protected. Clearly, though, something has to be done. And not just picking up sticks, or finding the genealogical records.