I work in a museum which is undergoing major contruction and renovations in the main building complex, and I think I’m about ready to go insane. It’s mundane and pointless, but I have to share my story in case I go postal, and I need to establish my frame of mind.
As I walked through the door this morning, I heard a sound which filled my heart with icy horror. I stopped dead in my tracks, moaning "… * nooooo * softly under my breath. The moment I had dread more than Judgement Day had arrived, hearalded by a stealthy, repetitive scratching. In that moment, it sounded almost like the amused, throaty laugh of a vengance demon, gleeful at my woe.
The contractors were sanding. Slowly, I walked through the door, and informed my co-workers. They all stopped, and lowered their heads in a moment of silent prayer. Dear God, it has begun.
Over the past few months, we’ve coped in the forced, cheerful manner of patients waiting for their root canals consoling one another that “it won’t be so bad.” Soon, it would all be over, and we’d be enjoying the new building, which will greatly expand our exhibit space.
It’s been bad, but bearable, up to now. I’ve resigned myself to transporting priceless, fragile artifacts from building to building through a yard which looks like the aftermath of an Army bombing excersize. I’ve fallen into muddy craters and pulled myself out with good-natured aplomb. I’ve grown to accept and even fondly greet the workmen who continually burst noisily into the conservation room, leaving muddy tracks on the carpet. I’ve even managed to train myself not to startle while painting tiny numbers on the edge of a coin at the loud banging of the door and the tromping of booted feet. I’ve learned to block out the blaring country music outside my window, and have even attained god-like control of my excretory functions while our bathroom is out of order. But the dust is going to do me in.
Dust-- such a minor thing, yet so devestating. It’s slowly, but surely, breaking my spirit. I imagine myself in a straight jacket, rocking and muttering to myself. “The dust! It’s coming back! It’s on the mirrors! It’s on the piano! It’s everywhere! Dust! It’s on the artifacts! It’s * working its way into the cases. * Dust!!”
I work in a small musuem with a modest budget. All of the employees are Jacks and Jills of all trades. We number, clean, help restore, classify, document and store artifacts, as well as helping with guiding public tours. We’re also responsible for keeping the musem itself clean, which, during the glorious non-construction times for which I have such nostalgia, is a maybe-once-a-week chore.
Now, it is every day, and it’s more difficult than “ordinary” cleaning, such as you’d do in your house. Certain impliments and cleaning agents must be used on a dizzying variety of surfaces, meaning that the cleaners must carry so much equipment, rags and bottles that a casual observer might think we’re headed to a haz-mat site.
Some of the rooms in my museum are “open” exhibits, meaning that objects aren’t in cases. Today, to do one room, it took me two hours. “Dusting” artifacts does not usually involve just a rag and a cleaner-bottle, but a selection of them, along with paintbrushes, low-suction vaccums, and feather dusters. In the other, more traditional exhibit areas, the cases must be cleaned. You can’t just spray and wipe, however, (oh, how lovely that would be) my curator told me, because the dust may scratch the case tops. The dust must be carefully removed, and then wiped down with the proper cleansing agent. ('ll admit it, but only to you, and only if you don’t tell: I did try to cheat, and spent a long, regretful time dealing not with scratches, but mud streaks. I learnt my lesson.)
After spending most of the day cleaning up the dust, I would try to remain optomistic. Surely, there wouldn’t be enough by tomorrow to force another cleaning, I’d tell myself. Every day when entering the museum, my spirits would be crushed anew. But, as I said, it was bearable. What was the most difficult was the numbing knowledge that tomorrow, it would be as if none of this work had ever been done.
We did know, deep in our minds that one day the Drywall Men would come but, like death, it could for which we could never be fully prepared. It took a week for the cutting, which we dealt with grimly but stoicly. It was a temporary increase in the amount of dust, which must be dealt with, and would be quietly rejoiced when over. None of us wanted to think of what was ahead. It was a forbidden topic of discussion, unless referred to euphamisticly as “The Dark Day It Begins.” Like natives in the shadow of a rumbling volcano, we dreaded the inevitable.
Now, the dark day is upon us. The Sandmen have come.
Their scratching echoed off of the grey walls, which were shouded in white. It looked like a smoker’s convention had decended. Men on ladders wearing surgical masks waved to me as I navigated toward the doors. A white cloud entered with me, the dust swirling. I delivered the horrid message. When I left for the evening, I could see that a soft white coating had settled on the case tops, already thick enough to write in.
Monday comes too soon. It’s going to be like digging out Pompeii every day.
Pray for my sanity, people.