3/19/2012

Weekends.

Since the tender age of 19 when I got my first real job in a bookstore, I've never really understood the whole concept of weekends.

Saturday and Sunday were the busiest retail days of the week; therefore, they were pretty much always work days for me.

This trend continued for the next, oh, 17 years or so.

I would hear people talking about "weekends" like it was some magical time of fun and frolic, as in "So what are you going to do this weekend?" or "I've got big plans for the weekend" or "I hope you have a great weekend!"

This. Does. Not. Compute.

Well meaning customers would mention weekends to me and I would answer, quite self-righteously, "Well, I'll be here all weekend.  Working.  Someone has to work so you have a place to shop, you know."  They I would smile my nicest so they would know I was being all friendly about it.  I wasn't, by the way.


The UPS man who brought our packages to the bookstore was the worst.  Over the years I met no fewer than a dozen UPS men, and they all had the same patter of small talk.  It's like days 5-9 of UPS Man 101 Training went like this: "Ok, you're going to meet a lot of people and it's impossible to remember everybody's name, so you can get away with calling the women 'Lady.'  Try this.  'Hey Lady, how you doing today?'  If you can throw in a wink/click maneuver, even better.  Oh, and talk to them about weekends.  Everybody loves weekends, right?"


I would give him hell about it.  It's perfectly acceptable to be bitchy to the delivery guy, especially when he says the same damn thing to you every Friday for six years - "Have a great weekend!" - and you respond the same way - "I have to work all weekend, you asshat."

Ah, memories.

But then I quit working.

And then zj started school.

And slowly, it began to dawn on me that those two "S" days really were different from all the others.

No dragging a tired kid out of bed every morning and forcing "just one more bite, no you have to eat some fruit, too and sit up please. SIT UP NOW" down his throat before trying to get him ready "brush your teeth.  No, you can't just stand there you actually have to put the toothbrush in your mouth and move it around.  MOVE IT AROUND.  MOVE.  IT. AROUND!"

No homework.  No schedules to follow.  Nowhere to be.  Nowhere to go.  Total freedom.

So now we spend the weekends taking long walks:

And throwing rocks:


And playing video games:



And... actually, I don't know what the hell this is, but we do a lot of it anyway:



Oh, and we sleep in and eat a big breakfast while reading the paper and watching cartoons, and we don't fight about eating vegetables, because it's the weekend and we stay in out pajamas all day if we want to because HELLO!  it's the weekend and we don't do housework or laundry or anything at all that we don't want to do.  Because it's the weekend, of course.  And every Sunday night, we have pizza and watch a movie together, because the weekend is almost over and we're gonna celebrate right up till the bitter end.

Yeah.  Weekends.  I get it now.

And I can't wait until the next one.

4 comments:

  1. Yep, I totally get it. I am only now beginning to "get" the whole weekend thing, and it's only because I've been off work almost a year now. I worked every weekend during college, worked every other weekend at my first "real" job, and for several years worked every weekend and every holiday and wanted to smack the crap out of everyone every Friday, and especially the Fridays before long weekends when they'd innocently ask about my plans and I'd say, "Well, I'll be right here at 3am every morning and work twelve or fourteen hours without so much as a bathroom break, thanks for asking." You'd think people would stop asking, wouldn't you??

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    Replies
    1. Yes, but then never do. Stop asking, that is. It's like it's ingrained into people to inquire about weekends, like saying "Bless you" when you sneeze. Let's take a solemn vow to never, ever, ever ask about someone's weekend plans, no matter what, even if we have a quick jaunt to Cancun to lounge by the pool planned.

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  2. Sounds wonderful... maybe someday. (sigh)

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  3. Dawn, you could do what I did, and just quit. Perhaps you could find a nice Asian gentleman to be your sugar daddy. It's worked out well for me so far ;-)

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