Tag: Reading rainbow

Of Mice and Men’s Rooms

Sadie Cracker

It’s summer time, which means signing up little guys for the book challenge at the Coma library.

In case you haven’t been there since Van Halen was “Hot for Teacher,” the library is like Kindle but where you are stuck in one place, not allowed to drink lattes while browsing and Libraries don’t sell toys.

 

NoFoodAndDrinkInLibrary

None of that kept me from signing Jimmy up for the summer reading program. His brother Johnny signed up last week and picked 25 books to read.
“Jimmy, how many books do you want to get?”

He looked at me. Looked at the floor. Looked at the screen and said, “two?”

I stood there looking at the rows of books remembering how I read my way through the library as I kid and how I went to college knowing–not  believing, not dreaming–but knowing that someday I would have my name on the spine of a book. It hasn’t happened but it’s something I believed as a kid
“You mean you want to read twenty?”

of_mice_and_men_vocabularyHe shook his head again, no. “I want to be happy,” he said. “I need to pee.”

This started to make me feel panicky. Not just because he didn’t want to read like I wanted him to but also because I cannot figure out how to make the bathroom work with boys. They can’t come in the women’s room with you because they talk about farting and laugh and point at every noise. They can’t go in to the men’s room by themselves because they’ll destroy something. You can’t go with them.

“I have to peeee.”

So we rushed back to the bathroom and he went in and I held the door open until a man walked up with his son.

“It’s okay.” He said and took my hand off the door. “I tell my wife it’s ok. He’ll be fine.”