living on the edge

i will officially verify the fact that i am always late. this is all encompassing. im late to work, im late to class, im late to pick up on obvious jokes, im late paying bills, and of course im late returning library books.

Now i am in no way saying that i am above being on time. I understand people have deadlines and time schedules that they keep for specific reasons, and when i do not abide (consciously and unconsciously), i am always fully prepared to suffer reprecautions.

i know this bothers people. especially my friends. ive lost friends because of this. but its okay because my true friends just accept this as a fact of life. it might be selfish. it might be rude.

yeah i dont much care.

any way. i of course have fines at the library. you cant check things out if your fine is above ten dollars. I of course knew mine was above ten. so i got online and looked at my balance prior to going to the library.
it was 10.75

not bad considering it was 24 a month ago.

im broke. clearly so i scoured my house finding every quarter possible. I found 1.75
perfect.

i perused the library for a good one point five hours. finally ready to leave i go to the counter.

i immediatley hand the librarian my 1.75 and tell her i already knew i had fines to pay.
(i think it has been maybe four years since i havent heard that annoying dink when they scan my card signifying the fact that i have fines to pay. as if i didnt already know that.)

She had this very smart look about her as she said " I need your card first"

well of course! I hand it to her. And thanks to my belligerent and borderline insane drunken ways, my library card is in bad shape. ( it hangs on my key chain you see.) The plastic is so worn off that it wont scan.
Of course smart librarian huffs at this because she has to manually enter all 15 numbers.
i silently enjoy this.
and of course i hear the ding, and hand her the money she refused before.

11.85 she says.

how can this be! I tell her as kindly as possible that there electronic database conveyed to me that it was only 10.75.

Well it looks like you renewed books recently and they were over due when you renewed them. Therefore each one costs you 5 cents.

Well yes i say, but i renewed those books last week. The E-Library told me two hours ago that it was only 10.75

"well im telling you its 11.85"

"well i only brought 1.75. The E-Library told me it was 10.75. I brought my funds accordingly."

blank stares are exchanged.

"well let me see what i can do"

smart lady takes my money from my hand and then informs me that i now owe 9.99.

despite the fact that i have just been completley TAKEN by my faithful community library, i decided its fine, because in the end i got to check out my books. but no. smart lady has one last piece of information before i left.

"A word of advice. Its not a good idea to live so close to the edge."
and hands me a very long reciept describing each fine on my tab.





yes, because i am late to process exactly what she said until im already walking away, i may have called her a dumb .......fill in the blank.....silently in my mind.





im not really sure why she felt i needed to know that information, or who she thought she was to share such advice with a mere stranger.

i live close to the edge every day and i quite like it that way.
i hope she works every time i go to the library from now on.