Got a call at 6:30 again this morning. Today the needed a warm body to help with book collection. The schedule was flexible enough for me to be able to take off to pick up Leslie from school, so I took it.
When I got there, there was a teacher, a volunteer, and Gary, another sub I've met a couple times. Right away, we got started stacking the books that students had turned in. We were told that there would be over 700 Freshman English books, 600 Sophomore English- and over 500 each of the Junior and Senior ones. I tell you this to give you an idea of what it might be like when you factor in the Maths, Sciences, and Social Studies. Not to mention the Career and Technology and PE books.
The High School is being remodeled, so all the books from the book storage room had to be moved to the "gym with the soft floor." This is a terribly inappropriate name. The floor is made up of ten inch plastic squares- my mom had them in her Elementary PE gym. Yes, it is softer than concrete or hardwood, but not by much.
When there were breaks in the flow of students, Gary and I would go and do a book run. About six of them. This involved loading up what I call a Lowe's Skiff- those hard to maneuver blue flatbed things- with as many books as we could. Usually between sixty and one hundred. Then we would push it back to the gym. Which, by the way, was on the almost complete opposite side of the school.
Books are heavy.
When I got home, I just laid down. I wanted to go to sleep. Now, I'm in pretty good shape, I think. In fact, that is one of the best things about unemployment, I'm getting lots of exercise. But the bending and walking and pushing seriously wore me out. And made me hungry. It was an eight taco night for dinner today.
I did get to chat with the other workers quite a bit, and got their stories and got to share mine- always a good thing. And it was a low stress day. All in all, I'd do it again.
Just not tomorrow.
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