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| I took these two pictures in the window of a flower shop when we were in Paris in 2016 |
A snapshot of your day. The way we see anything in life is a matter of where we place our focus. Even from the same angle, your view can change dramatically if you let in more or less light, shift your focus from the foreground to the background.
Book Fair.
Ask any straight-talking school librarian and they will tell you - Book Fair is the bane of our existence. That meme about the Scholastic Book Fair being the best week of the year? I call BS. It's my bi-annual nervous breakdown. It's the week when I truly understand why a teacher once told my class we drove him to drink.
I'm in the business of putting books in kids' hands for free! I don't want their money. No seriously, I don't want to touch it. It's almost always sticky or damp, or it's $9.37 worth of pennies in a sock (I wish that was a joke).
And then there are the tears. So many tantrums, so much soul-crushing disappointment when the kids whose families can't afford to let them shop watch their classmates spend money like it's burning a hole in their pocket, or their sock, as the case may be. And the sales tax. Don't get me started on the sales tax that we are legally required to charge. Have you ever tried explaining the concept to a 7-year-old? Good friggin' luck.
But let's twist the lens a little, shift the focus. Flatten the depth of field so we see the whole picture. Now there's the Dr. Jekyll to my Hyde. Kids lose their ever-loving MINDS over the Book Fair. They love it so much that some cry when it's over (I cry too, but they are tears of joy).
Sure, some kids waste their money on those g.d. spy pens and the diaries with locks that break immediately. But the majority of kids are buying books! Books to read! Books to share with friends! They are so excited about reading and building their home libraries. Plus, it's a chance for them to practice real-world skills such as budgeting, counting money, and so much more.
I know all this. I do. So I put on a brave face, I count those pennies like a boss, and then on Friday I bathe in a vat of hand sanitizer and get rip-roaring drunk.*
*have like 2-3 glasses of wine, slip into a deep South Jersey accent, and scream-tell Andy all the horror stories from the past week
I loved the book fair as a kid and equally loved when it was your turn to choose and purchase books at your book fair. The heinous librarian in your school must have suffered doubly since she already hated kids!!
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