2.06.07

Category: dribblings

they’re supposed to x-ray Toonces to see if she has some kind of intestinal blockage. if that’s the case then i think surgery is the next step.
the burning question is: how much money am i going to spend on this cat?

i don’t even like cats.

***

cookie and i stayed up late last night laughing at the world and making fun of you. it was awesome. the next episode of the Cookie and Jaime Show can be seen this wednesday night at 6pm at the Trinity Lutheran Church Knitting Class/Group.
be there, or be made fun of.

***

once a month at the library they send out notices to the people who are late with their books by a month or two… or ten. the third letter is the one where we include a city ordinance saying that you have city property and the police can arrest you for stealing from the city. the next few days after the letters are sent we collect a lot of fines. the people are usually very contrite or royally pissed.

the other day a lady came in terrified that the police were going to arrest her.
“can they really arrest me?” she asked in a whisper. i put on my serious face and said, “Uh. Sure.”
“oh, God.”
“but see, you brought the books back so now you don’t have city property in your possession. so there you go.”
“yeah, but i can’t afford the fine today.” she did have a large fine, but only because she had some videos out and they are a dollar per day late. they top out at a certain amount though, as we aren’t really greedy bastards, we know you could buy most of those videos online for $10. so it’s not like your late fee for a barney video is going to be $30.
“can you pay part of the fine?”
“no, i don’t have any money on me.”
sure you don’t.
“well, okay, but you can’t use the computers or check out any books until the fine is paid off.”
“okay. but…can the police still come and arrest me?”
whoa, she is definetly hiding meth at her house or something.
“i…i’ve never heard of ANYONE getting arrested over a library fine, but you never know.”

then you have the self-righteous a-holes who come in fuming that their precious children got a notice in the mail.
“HOW DARE YOU SCARE LITTLE JOHNNY LIKE THAT! THREATENING TO ARREST A 6 YEAR OLD! HE WAS TERRIFIED!” cos the letters are sent to the name on the card, so if a little kid has a card and he keeps The Hardy Boys and the Mystery of the Lost Library Book for 4 months…he’s getting a notice. but it’s NOT like he hasn’t gotten two previous notices that didn’t have the threat of police, right?

parents are really fackin’ stupid sometimes.

“he was SO SCARED that the police we’re going to come arrest him!”

good. next time he’ll remember to bring the book back… possibly on time.

collecting fines is nice in that it makes a bit of money for the library, but if you think it’s enough to run the place, you’re crazy. the fines for books, audio, and video do have a limit…like i said, the library isn’t greedy. the library just wants it’s books back. so even if you have a book that belongs to the library that’s years old…and you’re terrified that the police have a warrant for your arrest, just bring the damn book back (drop it off in the depository if you don’t want to face the Late Fee of Shame) so the ‘brary can get it back on the shelves. that’s all they really want.

***

we were talking about how the fiction section is getting kind of full and that sometimes there’s no room to put books where they belong unless you shift 4 other shelves worth of books. so the librarian is going through a list of all the fiction books to see what can go (if they haven’t been checked out in the last three years i think they go to the booksale) and we were talking about if for some reason everyone who had library books out returned them all on the same day there’d be no way we could hold them all.
what an awesome problem to have… too many books.

the cookbook section is also stuffed. i suggested we make a new rule that if you check out a book you must also check out a cookbook.
“oh, i see you’re reading the Dark Tower series.”
“yeah, it’s great!”
“i read the first two but it was way too confusing for me. is it in the past? is it in the present? how is a cowboy at a medieval castle? it really lost me when the lobster chopped off Roland’s hand. i couldn’t take it after that.”
“you just gotta keep reading. it gets so good.”
“that’s what i’ve heard. here’s your cookbook.”
“but i didn’t-”
“have a nice day.”
“aw man, Rachel Ray?”
“next.”

the librarian didn’t go for it. my brilliance is wasted.
hee.

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