That Guy: I Am Him

Okay, so this is a serious problem and source of shame for me. After all the crap I've given Brenda, after all the ragging on Lynne, after coming up for a plan for a uniformed library enforcement squad, it comes to this. They say confession is good for the soul; let it be true, because it doesn't feel like that right now.

I....lost a library book.

Shhh! Don't tell the BPL--I haven't told them yet. It's not due till the end of next week. But it's gone, just plain gone. I had it on a Friday, in a doctor's waiting room, and I noticed the next morning that it wasn't in my purse. I can't find it in my house. The doctor's office doesn't have it (confirmed by phone and in person). Nor does the restaurant I ate at after the doctor's appointment, nor the library (a Minuteman library, not BPL) where I browsed after lunch. I've been praying that someone would find it and turn it in, and that it will show up in my account as returned, but not yet.

And the worst part is, it's a book that the library is understocked on. I mean, Megan McCafferty is one of the most popular YA writers right now--this book has three bestselling sequels. Yet the BPL system, in all its branches, has only four copies. Of which I lost one. I think the worst part of this whole thing is how judgmental I am of some faceless stranger when I see the "Item Lost" designation in the system. And now, lo, I am he. It doesn't feel good.

And the coup de grace, the insult added to the injury, is that, calling the restaurant, the doctor's office, the other library, I had to ask each of them on the phone if they could find the book I was reading. "What's it called?" asks the middle-aged Russian waitress at the diner. And I have to answer, "Sloppy Firsts."

Somebody wake me up.