Well, after twenty years of abusing libraries, I have finally learned my lesson.
It was raining today. I´d been running, showered. I was enjoying my disgusting cup of instant coffee as much as one CAN enjoy a disgusting cup of instant coffee, and chuckling to myself at the blatant sarcasm of John Locke in his essay ¨On Human Understanding.¨ I was taking notes, preparing to write a response essay to it later. I got tired, took a nap, went to school, and then I went to the library...
I informed the librarian I´d forgotten to bring the book back due to the recent short vacation. I supposed there would be a penalty. I´m used to paying fines for my library books, as I never bring them back on time. Frankly, it´s frequently cheaper to pay the fine than it is to drive back to the library and turn in the book. Well, this man did not want my money. No. What he wanted was the FULL REVOCATION of my library privileges until a period of two days for every one day the book was late had passed. The horror! I was planning to go home with that book tonight and make myself some rooibos chamomile tea and continue reading. But the book was physically removed from my hands. I felt violated. My evening plans, my weekend plans, had just been pulled out of my hands. All I could do was stand there pathetically asking, ¨Seriously?¨
And that´s when I realized... this is what they needed to do to get me to bring my books back all those years. I have transgressed at every library I have ever patronized. I have acquired something of a record. My books are always returned late or damaged. To further exemplify my point, I will tell you of some perversions of library usage that will make you shudder.
Age 5. My parents both worked full time jobs. Mom was all day shift. Dad was a shiftworker. So I stayed at my grandma´s house a lot. Luckily for me, she lived close to the Paden City Public Library. I flippantly charged through the neighbor´s yards and church parking lots instead of using the streets on my way to the library. Sometimes I even snuck out without telling my grandma where I was going. Yeah, I was a hard roller like that. I couldn´t be distracted from my goal, which was to get to the library, march defiantly to the empty plastic gallon jug painted to look like a face with a mouth, out of which came recycled grocery bags. I would then greedily fill the bag with eight books, which was the library´s maximum and storm back to my grandmother´s house. She always wanted to know how many books I had, because my mother had instructed me not to get so many anymore since I always lost them. I lied, of course, and ran away and hid the books. When my mother came to pick me up from my grandmother´s house at the end of the day, I would wait until they were engrossed in conversation and run to the van as fast as I could to hide the books under the seats so she wouldn´t catch on to my disobedience. Four weeks later, though, she´d get a call from the librarian, who unfortuately also went to our church. (I had to be reminded of my crimes while looking at Jesus every Sunday.) Suddenly, my mother was standing in the doorway of my bedroom. ¨Casie, I just got a call from the library.¨ My five-year-old brain was racing, searching for lies and excuses before I could remember if I even had any books from the library. Oh, but there was the corner of ¨Frog and Toad Together¨ peeking out at me from under the bed, and I knew I was sunk. I´ve never been a good liar, perhaps due to the overwhelming panic I always feel at being caught at something, or perhaps due to the guilt only a helplessly repeat offender of library crimes such as myself could possibly ever know. Seeing the guilt spread across my face, my mother, who could sometimes be decent despite her efforts to cap my avarice for more and more library books, would enter what appeared to be a teddy bear, doll baby, and random stuffed animal drunken orgy, and help me search for the books. We figured 6 outta 8 wasn´t bad, and she´d take me to the library, make me walk in with my sack full, but not as full as it should have been, of books, and hand them to the library, explaining that I still had to check my backpack, cubby at school, and grandma´s house for the remaining two. For awhile I´d be embarrassed. I´d be sorry for the lack of Wet´n´Wild nail polish that I bought every week with my allowance, which was now being withheld to pay off my library debt. I´d go home, clean my room, try to convince my parents I could be trusted with library books again and to reinstate my allowance, but within days I would inevitably be back to my old tricks. ¨Mam-maw, me and Erica are going to the library, OK?... No, I won´t get more than three.. YES!!! I promise!!!¨ I was sincere, of course. What sort of sociopathic kindergartener could lie to her dear, sweet Mam-maw? But when I got to the library I was like a gambling addict in a casino. I fought myself hard. I laid all the books I wanted to take home with me out on a table and commiserated for MINUTES over which ones I would check out. I knew I couldn´t show up with eight again, not that soon, but maybe, no... surely, my compassionate grandmother would understand that I could not possibly leave these extra two behind. If I did, someone else might have them checked out when I came to look for them again. And then I´d come back a few weeks later, and SOMEONE ELSE would have them. Good God- this could go on FOREVER! Yes, my Mam-maw would understand.
By the fourth grade, I had yet to change my ways. Two of my great passions at that age were riding in the back of my dad´s truck and reading the Little House on the Prairie series. So one day I was just riding in the back of the truck, reading my book, when suddenly I felt the bump and tumble of the gravel driveway. CHIPS AHOY! If I didn´t get inside soon my little sister would beat me to them! So I jumped from the bed of the truck and sprinted in the house, forgetting all about my book. My dad was on the midnight shift that night. At about 11:45, just as he should have been arriving at the plant, it began to rain. I worried for my book. I thought about telling my mother, maybe we had time to drive up the river and rescue my book before it was ruined. It had a laminated library cover, so that should offer some protection, right? But I couldn´t expose my shame, or more accurately, terror. So half an hour later, I forgot all about it, went to bed, and woke the next morning with not a single thought of my lost book. That book stayed there for two months. The school librarian asked me about it when it was three weeks overdue, but by this time I´d forgotten about the truck incident and therefore spent hours searching for it at all my relatives´ houses and in the VORTEX OF HELL, which was my bedroom. One day I was just wallering around on the floor watching the morning sitcoms on TBS when my mom walked in the living room. ¨I found your book,¨ she stated flatly and smilelessly. ¨What book?¨ She held it up for me, soggy and moldy. I took it to the school librarian the next day after failed attempts at resucitating it with a blowdryer. She gave me a dirty look, made me pay 10 dollars in damages... I shudder to think how many bottles of Wet´n´Wild I had to sacrifice to pay that one off... but she STILL let me have more books.
I didn´t get better in high school. My report card was withheld more than once due to overdue library books or outstanding fines. In college, I failed to return movies and books on time, and when I did return them, they were frequently coffee stained. I always set the books on the return table and walked away as quickly as possible. Frankly, I was embarrassed of myself by that age. I could hear scolding librarians´ voices in my head: Overdue... again?! Coffee stains?! Do you really have NO respect for this library??? Every time I took a book a home, I promised myself... THIS time, I´d bring it back on time, I´d keep it clean, I wouldn´t dog ear the pages, I wouldn´t dig my nail into the pages as I followed along in the text. THIS time I was gonna get my shit together. It didn´t matter that I LOVED libraries, the overwhelming smell of musty pages every time I walked in the door, the fact that this was one institution I could actually get on board with, one that let me read books for FREE... I even sometimes donated my old books to try to burn off some old bad library karma... I just couldn´t get it together.
Then tonight I realized... if they wanted their books back, on time and undamaged, all they had to do was refuse to let me have any more. As I stood there in shock with no more book, I was completely bereft. Nothing was going to make this better, not another book, not learning my lesson, and definitely not the damn DIGITAL version! From here on out, I will be a good library patron (I hope). I will return my books undamaged (insofar as I am capable) and on time (if I remember).
(Parts of this may have been embellished. Or maybe I´m just saying that to save face... you decide.)
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