Visiting the Library

I used to be a big library fan. I didn’t really start to appreciate the library until college, but then I came to love it. Then once I had a decent career, and could afford to buy books instead of just check them out, the book store became my fave over the library.

For the past 10 years or so, I have rarely gone to the library. Cowgrit takes our boys each week, and she’s even the “book mom” for Calfgrit8’s second-grade class. That means she picks up a list of subjects the class will be covering over the next week or so, and she goes to the public library to check out a bunch of books on those topics.

Last night, we all went to the library as a family to pick up the books the class will need for the next week or so. Between the class books and our boys’ own choices of books to read at home, we had probably two dozen books. When Cowgrit and the Calves were up at the counter getting checked out, I wandered over to the science fiction shelves to see if something jumped out at me to read.

I ended up in the graphic novel section and found a couple of old X-Men compilations to check out. When the librarian was scanning in my choices, and scanned my library card, she told me I had $3.50 in fines.

“What?” I said. “Wow. I haven’t checked out a book in a couple years.”

The librarian checked her computer, “Yeah, it was in oh-seven.” Interestingly, the late book was a comic book compilation: Wolverine from the 1980s. “You don’t have to pay the fine now, you can do it later,” she offered.

I checked my wallet and found only a single one-dollar bill. “OK, I’ll have to pay it later.”

Wow. I go to the library just once every couple of years, and I still build up fees. This supports my choice of usually just buying books from a store.

Bullgrit