Ho ho ho hee hee hee the world is just like one big Christmas tree

Noreen's worried. After yet another quiet summer on the stock-ordering front, punctuated only by government agencies' occasional insane dumps of Book Off books for the tiny tots, there's a mad panic of book-buying and the Acq. Team is overwhelmed yet again. A stock refresh at Raccoonville, which Bronwyn scheduled a while back, is coinciding with the sudden cold realisation* that Catty's re-opening soon and we've not bought any stock for it since Chrimbo. Add the usual flourish of new autumn titles and we're having fun.

There are seventy-two boxes waiting in the fire exit corridor and another twenty-six by the Team's desks. Oh, and another thirty boxes of Book Off books.

"Don't worry," says Bronwyn, "you can only do what you can do, and if it has to wait to be done then it's not a problem."

Except that there's bound to be some silly beggar who'll make it into a problem.

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* It's the same sudden cold realisation Mary and Julia had a month ago. And in June. We're consistent like that.