Things You Find

Happy Sunday afternoon! This has been a delightful day so far. The sun is shining, the windows are open, there’s a breeze, and Lu has been laying in the ray of sunlight coming in through the camper screen door. I intend to enjoy it all day, as it looks like we are in for an entire week of rain starting tomorrow.

Now that things are calming down, I have turned my focus back to writing and reading. I made a commitment to myself this past week that I would spend at least 30 minutes each day either writing, reading (these library books aren’t going to read themselves), or working on honing my writing skills. I still have an unfinished writing course on Udemy I’ve been meaning to complete for...well, let’s just say you could measure it in years. So far, I’ve kept up with the 30-minute practice.

Speaking of library books, you all know what a fan I am of public libraries. Having worked for two and being a regular patron, I have reached the point where the thought of not having a local library to visit makes me panic a li’l bit. I’ve already researched my options for when I get to Texas in the fall and I currently have six checked out here: two books of fiction, one on writing, one on social issues, another on world religions and a biography of Dame Agatha Christie. Each of these are in various stages of completion. I used to be a monogamous reader, finishing one book before starting the next, but as I have gotten older, and with things like a full-time job clocking most of my time each week, I tend to read a bit of one here, then a bit of another there. It’s like a little literary buffet, so why would I eat just the grilled cheese when there’s so many other yummy things on the plate to take a bite of?

I was reading a bit earlier (in the book on writing) and came across a short hair between the pages at the binding. This is a regular occurrence and, being someone who sheds a fair amount of hair myself, it doesn’t bother me. Sometimes it’s clearly cat hair, most often it’s human. I did have the thought that this would make a good plot for a murder mystery - the murderer’s DNA ends up in an unsuspecting library patron’s home, having gotten there via library book. What fun we could have with that!

Anyway, it got me thinking about the random things I’ve come across in the library books I’ve checked out and those I checked in when I worked at the library. Library staff are trained to examine returned books for damage, bedbugs*, and random stuff. Here’s a short list:

• Random hair - as mentioned.

• Crumbs from some sort of snack - I sometimes try and figure out what they were eating while they were reading. One time, it was definitely Pringles. And then I wished I had some Pringles.

• Stains and smears - it was clear that the book had been in a bag containing something with red ink (maybe a marker) that had gotten wet and run into the page’s edges.

• Pencil, pen, crayon marks - I’ve found adult books where clearly someone’s toddler got hold of it and a crayon at the same time.

• Bookmarks, bookmarks, bookmarks.

• Money - when I worked at the library, someone turned in a book that had upwards of $50 in it stuck between the pages. I turned the money in to my supervisor along with the name of the patron who last had the book out.

• A packet of dog flea medication - you know, the kind where you put drops on the skin on their back?

• A kid’s dirty sock - okay this wasn’t in the book, but it was in the book drop and this was the grossest thing I ever found aside from the occasional trace of bedbugs.

Of course, before the digital age, books had a little pocket glued just inside the cover, either in the back or the front, that held a little paper card where the borrower wrote their name and the librarian stamped the due date on a paper date slip that was also glued inside the book. When I was a kid in school, I loved when I chose books from the school library and could see which kids had checked it out before me. Sometimes they were classmates. I got a kick out of finding the name of a popular classmate in the same book that I was going to read. Sometimes they were from classes that had long since moved on and I would try to imagine what that person was like. Did they love to read or did they just have to check the book out to do an assignment? Did they have the same teacher as I had? Did they like the book? If it was a boy’s name, was he good-looking?

We’ve come a long way with library technology, thankfully. I can’t imagine being the librarian that had to pick through those cards to pull the ones that were overdue, then typing a paper letter to snail mail to each of the tardy patrons!

Of course, libraries offer so much more than just books these days. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If you have access to a public library you should utilize it! Libraries are a gift that we often take for granted.

And with that, I’ll leave you with some ideas other folks have had about libraries:

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*Yes, books may harbor bedbugs. Don’t freak out. Books are inspected before they hit the shelves and controls are in place. Take a breath. Now go get your library card.