I Love That the Library Is Free...Except When It Isn't

I'm posting this in the hopes that it might make someone else out there feel less awful about themselves, the way someone encouraged me by sharing their library fine horror story once.

We love the library, and help our local branches meet their circulation goals, as one librarian told us wryly one time while helping us with our mountain of holds. The wonder of the library never ceases for us. All these books, magazines, CD's, movies...for FREE!

Except when it's not. Such as when a cooler turns over in the back of the car, and melted ice leaks out onto a pile of books waiting to be returned, and the library later sends us a nice letter telling us that they appreciate our patronage and we're now the proud owners of one, two, three, four, FIVE books with irreparable damage. This is quite a hefty charge in the "unpaid fines" section of my library card account, even as used to hefty charges as we are. The dowside to having 100 books spread over six cards is that a day or two late can really add up, as can one missing book that no one can remember ever seeing, or the effects of a page-ripping-happy toddler...the list goes on. Dave used to get upset over these kinds of thing, but over the years he's grown more mellow about it, remarking once that he considers fines to be "our monthly donation to the library," and joking on ocassion that they should name a wing after us.

Our fine problem has been better these past few months, since one of the libraries we use doesn't charge fines on children's books...as long as you bring them back....without water damage. This recent fiasco rather makes up for all that time, however, all in one big chunk, and Dave didn't look so resigned when he read that nice letter from the library. Still, all he said was, "That's a lot of books." I know, I know! And obviously there's no way to talk myself out of this one (as I did once in SC when we had a slew of overdue books, and I begged for mercy due to weeks of morning sickness and pregnancy brain). So now we're on our way to helping this local library build a new wing, too, for which I hope they're grateful. And you better believe those "irreparably damaged" books are going on our shelves - as soon as we pay for them - as ever-present reminders of the "free" library.