Summer Reading Day 3

Since we were closed for holidays on Monday, Summer reading got shifted to Tuesday of this week. Mrs. A asked me to come in and help run the desk with her again. I was expecting the usual Chaos Hell thing to occur again, as it on Day 1 of Summer Reading, but I couldn't have been more wrong.

It was wonderful! Just an absolute joy. The kids were polite and waited their turn in line. They all still had their new library cards from last week. The adults were also nice and there weren't even all that many of them who needed new cards.

We put Mrs. J on computer sign up duty, but I don't think we even needed to do that. We had everything under firm control and even had a little downtime to relax. Hell, we were so hip to the scene that Mrs. A let me leave early to run home and make my signature dish potato salad for a party my writers group was having.

On Wednesday, Mrs. C asked me how things went for Day 3 and if it was as bad as it had been on Day 1.

"No, Tuesday went great," I said.

And then it hit me: the reason everything is awful and chaotic during Monday Summer Reading days is because they take place on a MONDAY! Mondays are EVIL enough all by themselves without the added complication of a hundred kids running around, snarling at one another for taking the last Junie B. Jones book. Why the hell are we compounding our problems by doing Summer Reading on Monday when Tuesday is SO MUCH BETTER?!

Mrs. C had the answer. It seems some time ago a certain librarian type person (*COUGH* *COUGH* *MRS A* *COUGH*) used to insist that Summer Reading be scheduled primarily on days when she didn't work so that she wouldn't have to work it. She never used to work Mondays so that's when it landed. I don't know if she was just phobic about kids, or what, but Mrs. A has never had a lot to do with any children's programming we do. (I'm not pointing fingers, cause I don't really either.) Somewhere along the line, though, she began working the desk during it to free up other staff members to help outside. And now she's wrangled me into helping her out of necessity. So my big question is: If she's going to work the desk during Summer Reading anyway, why don't we just move it to Tuesday when it's so much more bearable than leaving it on the most horrible day of the week?

Mrs. C says it's also because she herself can't imagine having it on any other day than Monday. To her, it just seems right. I told her that was crazy talk and that I'm going to become a Tuesday Lobbyist until we get it moved. Perhaps if I threaten to come down with a Mondaycentric five-week intestinal illness that prevents me from working the desk, they'll start listening.