a bad library user confession

So it’s happened.

The first time in thirty-four years.

The last time it almost happened, I was five, but we eventually found it, behind the frame of a picture that hung alongside the staircase. It was determined that someone had kicked it over the stairs and it had lodged behind there. Much later, one of my sister or I kicked a pair of scissors the same way, which went careening down into the goldfish tank and hit one of Bert or Ernie (I was an kid raised on television; what can I say?), who swam tilted over for quite some time before he finally righted himself and went back to being an upright goldfish.

I have lost a library book.

I think we left it where we were staying last week on holiday. I emailed the proprietress and told her, should it turn up, the book can be returned to any library in the province (yay full-across-the-province library system). But I have yet to hear a response (actually, no one I’ve emailed in the past week and a half has emailed me back. What’s up with people taking summer breaks and not attending to my needy needs?) so I am not hopeful.

Now I have to go and shamefully reveal my trespass to Allan the librarian, who will shake his head and look at me like maybe I don’t deserve to take out any more books ever. But then whose books will you put on the hold pick-up shelf Allan? I always have books on that shelf.

So goodbye Burning Your Boats Collected Stories of Angela Carter. I wanted to read you and was judged, by my inability to gather up all my detritus, to be unworthy of the task.

Also, we seem to have left Og behind. If anyone is in need of a present for Tesfa, here you go.