Saved by the Bell, Errr, L.

Ahhhhhh, the library.

And, momentarily, the dang library!

I borrowed four items recently. I was told that yes, a reminder email notification would arrive a few days before their due date.

So I enjoyed the CD’s at length. And at length. And at length. And still at length.

Until yesterday when it occurred to me: “Gee, I’ve had these for an awfully long time.”

So I checked the slip. Due date: August 19!!

Yow!

At a buck-a-day fine, that’s some sum!

So I go to the library prepared to plea for mercy this one time. I’ve been overdue by a day or two before but never a month! Fact is, I never got the email.

I depend on library notifications. Yes, I admit, in that way I’m lazy. My bills’ due dates and other timely matters, I ink those on the calendar that hangs in a prominent spot and is often scanned.

I can’t say precisely why I like my library reminders exclusively by email. Reckon that it lures me into luxuriating in the presence of the books and CD’s without the sense of a ticking clock created by the words “Library Due” in bold colored letters on the calendar.

So to the returns clerk I say: “We have a little problem. These are way overdue.” I pull out the book and three CD’s from my little olive canvas flight bag and return them with a sheepish twinge. “I’m never this late. I just never got the email.”

“Can I have your library card please?” Tap tap tap tap sound his fingers on the computer keyboard.

“What’s your email again?”

I give it to him. Either he needs glasses or the screen print is really really tiny ’cause he leans in real close squinting, like he’d done when I signed up for the library card.

Tap tap. “There, it’s done.”

“Was the email wrong?”

“Yes, there was only one ‘l’ instead of two.” (that’s an “l” as in library.)

“That would explain it.”

“We won’t fine you,” he says, receiving the materials.

Good thing. For the $30 in fines, I could’ve bought that Neil Young CD AND the Indigo Girls’ AND possibly the “Hair” soundtrack AND the Dashiell Hammett novel in a bargain bin.

You might say it was financial burden averted just for the ‘l’ of it.

Advertisement