That Rush You Get From Spending Money That's Not Yours

I just finished with my Jr. High's first Book Fair of the year.

About 3 weeks ago, I called to update the Scholastic Company with the information that I was the new Library Tech at this school and was informed that a Book Fair had been scheduled and was coming up right quick.

After the shock wore off and the panic subsided, I went for it.

A lot of work goes into hosting a Book Fair.  The library has to be closed to regular book check-out (and this wasn't much of a problem because I had been down in the textbok dungeon for the past few weeks and the library hadn't even opened yet, so what was another week?!?)  Next, all the furniture needs to be relocated to create a big, open area for all the book displays.  Then there's the matter of notifying the staff and students of the upcoming event, sending home book flyers and making announcements.

The awesome Tech that was here last year had scheduled the event to coincide with the Back to School night.  Very clever.  Parents, afterall, are the ones with the money. 

I opened the doors during lunchtime and had the door staffed with someone who could regulate the number of students in at a time.  The kids would be asked to leave their backpacks at the door and put their money in their pockets.  I sold a whole lotta erasers, pointy fingers on sticks, pencils and bookmarks.  A few actually bought books, but I gotta say, the majority of the sales are from just plain stuff.

Today I tallied up my sales and had about $900 book credit awaiting me.  Wow.  That stack of ever growing "wanted" books?  Mine for the taking.  When a parent complained that her daughter had already read the books in this library, I gleefully pointed out the stack of new books awaiting barcodes and date-due slips.

Seriously?  I racked up about $700 in sales in about 5 minutes.  I smile just thinking about it.

Now you might think that I am feeding my inner, possession-oriented child.  Perhaps.  But the fact of the matter is, this school, this district, this STATE has no money that they are willing to spend on my little library.  It's up to me.  So if I have to give up hours of my own free time to get books into eager middle-school-aged hands, so be it.  Books are my passion and it's contagious.

Now I just have to wait until the $100 I spent on my own card shows up on our bank statement.  Some of the items are for Christmas presents.  I promise!!!