While a lot of Americans work all kinds of different hours, the Monday-to-Friday work week is still pretty common for millions of people. But that's not the case in the U.S. Senate.
For a few hours on Thursday, it looked like the Senate would hang around on Friday - even more surprising since Congress was ready to start an Easter Break that will last until April 28.
"Most people work on Fridays," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as he lectured Republicans about wasting time and delaying a variety of Obama Administration nominees.
Reid showed his displeasure with a fairly rare procedural vote on Thursday that allows the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest absent members and bring them to the floor for legislative business.
One of the more memorable times that occurred was back in 1988, when Democrats were furious with GOP legislative delays, as they authorized the Sergeant-at-Arms to grab wayward Senators.
Police at one point chased Sen. Steve Symms (R-ID) through the hallways of a Senate office building, but he evaded capture.
Soon after, a cleaning woman tipped off police that Sen. Bob Packwood (R-OR) was in his office; after a struggle that left Packwood with an injured hand, several officers carried the Oregon Republican onto the Senate floor.
Veteran reporters indicated at the time that it was the first such use of that authority in the Senate since World War II.
This time, no arrest warrants were issued, there were no reports of police dashing down the halls to capture Senators in order to establish a quorum.
What Sen. Reid wanted was for Republicans to allow votes to take place on Thursday afternoon - instead of Friday afternoon as stipulated under the rules for how the Senate deals with filibusters.
"Republicans are demanding that we waste time," a visibly frustrated Reid said on the Senate floor.
But the GOP was in no mood to help.
"We're working under the rules that the majority changed," Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) shot back at Reid, Grassley's voice rising with even more frustration, referring to the 'nuclear option' changes made by Democrats.
"We're simply exercising our rights under the rules of the Senate," said GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, which left the Majority Leader fuming just a few feet away.
Unable to get an agreement with Republicans for speeded up votes, Reid followed through on his vow to force votes on Friday - for the first time this year - as he scheduled the Senate to come in at the late hour of 4 pm, with votes starting at 5 pm.
That would mean a lot of Senators getting to the airport at a late hour. On a Friday. Before a two week vacation.
Up in the press gallery, we chuckled at the whole back-and-forth.
We know how much Sen. Reid doesn't like to have votes on Fridays - heck, the entire Senate doesn't really like to have legislative business on a Friday.
But we also didn't really believe there would be votes for the first time in 2014 on a Friday.
A few hours later...
A few hours later, I was writing up a story on this back and forth for my blog, when the email arrived about Friday's schedule in the Senate.
The Senate will convene at 4:00pm, at which point it is expected that a consent agreement will be entered that postpones the previously scheduled votes relative to the nominations of Michelle T. Friedland to be a United States Circuit Judge for the Ninth Circuit and David Weil to be Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division, Department of Labor until Monday, April 28. As a result, there are no votes expected during Friday's session.
"So predictable," one of my colleagues emailed.
For those keeping score at home, the Senate still has not held any votes on a Friday in 2014; there were four Fridays with votes in 2013.
"Most people work on Fridays," Sen. Reid had said earlier in the day.
Not on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
That means it's time to start that Easter Break - the Senate returns to work on April 28.
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