Libraries everywhere want me…for my fines…

I’ve been a library fine scofflaw ever since my mother stopped returning my library books for me (just last year! ba-dum-ching!)… but seriously folks, I have a problem with library fines.

The good librarians of Ballston Spa, Saratoga, Salem, Plymouth, Weymouth, and Orlando haven’t chased me down, at least not yet (do you loyal blog readers understand the RISK I undertake for you in daring to write this entry?).  Although I do seem to recall that my mother was denied a card a A Certain Library because of my checkered background (luckily she was able to demonstrate that I had lived on my own for oh, ten years by that point…). And I won’t get any static from last Florida county of residence, Osceola County, because they did not HAVE library fines (a beautiful, beautiful thing…).

As for my current public library, I actually keep up with my fines, mostly because they let me pay online. Do I keep up with returning things on time? No. And there’s guilt, lots of guilt. And big fines when I forget about movies, especially. A dollar a day, people. I could have owned “Marley and Me” twice over.

My current library system sends me the nicest little e-mail reminders that say something along the lines of “please return your materials promptly so that others may enjoy them.” They remind me twice, even, before the book is due. I walk by my (most always sizeable) stack of library books and I can almost hear them talking to me.

“You’re not reading us,” they’d say. “You were done with us weeks ago. Or maybe you read a few chapters and you tossed us aside like 3-day-old fish. If you don’t want us, if you don’t love us, then why don’t you give somebody else a shot?”

“It’s just… the library is 2 miles away. And that left-hand turn off Colesville is a killer during rush hour,” I tell them. “Plus there was that one time I didn’t find parking. It scarred me. I swear it’s me, not you.”

The books do not believe me. And maybe they shouldn’t. I’ve found that I tend to return my favorites fast, like they’re burning through the shelf. The ones I don’t like tend to linger in my book pile. Ironically, they are the ones that tend to earn the library fines. I don’t know if I’m hoping at some level to try them again and like them. Or maybe some part of me thinks I’m doing the world a service by clinging to that book a few more days.

At least the librarians still smile at me when I come to check out a book. They know me at this point; if they charged for reserving books I would have bought them a new Children’s wing by now. And they know my card is always… uh, enhanced by a few fines.  But still they hand over the books, even help me slide them into my bag.

Just imagine what they say as I walk out the door with my latest treasure trove of books. “See you next year, book,” they say. “We’ll send you a Christmas card.”

Or maybe they say “hey, that’s the lady that bought us a new coffee maker with all those fines she paid!”

Drink on, sweet patient librarians. Next year it’ll be an espresso machine.