Syllabus #150

This past week was Book Fair Week.  If over two years of a global pandemic produced anything positive, it was to spare me from holding 4 consecutive book fairs.  Fortunately for the world, but not so much for me, life has army crawled its way back to the edge of normalcy.  

A perennial problem

This spring, I had no choice but to pretend to be excited about having a real book fair again.  I had to touch money.  I had to explain that 1 quarter + 1 nickel + 1 penny does not equal "3 monies," but rather, $.31 cents, which can buy exactly nothing.  I had explain the what and why of sales tax over and over and over again.  I had to make kids cry.

It's over.  In a few more days, I'll stop having night terrors about hypothetically handling a financial document improperly and inadvertently owing the school hundreds of dollars.  In a few weeks, I'll stop clenching my jaw at the sound of assorted coins being dumped from a plastic baggie onto a hard surface.  I'll never erase from my brain the image of a child's eyes welling up with tears when I tell them all the rhinestone diaries and all the unicorn diaries are sold out and can't be restocked.

Learning what a hellacious shit parade the book fair is for the adults running it has been one of the most crushing realizations of adulthood.  Book fair blows.  I said what I said.  

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You know what, I didn't have time to read anything compelling on the internet this week.  I was too busy breathing into a paper bag when I got home every night.  And I was reading a really good book when I wasn't hyperventilating.  Y'all can deal.  Better luck next week!

Analog Reading:

Just finished The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.  Boy howdy was that a journey.  It felt a little schlocky in the beginning, and it never exactly blossomed into literature, but it was entertaining as hell.  I could not put it down towards the end, and I was probably gripping my Kindle hard enough to leave finger indentations in the cover.  

Up next:  Other People's Clothes by Calla Henkel