What Happens When You Lose a Library Book (A Question, Not a Statement)

Almost a year ago to this day, I checked out a certain book from the library.

My first clue that this certain book was “not like other books” (and by “other books,” I mean books that make you want to keep reading) should have been the fact that I could only get through a few pages at a time before falling asleep or trying to find something else to do like washing my baseboards.

Regardless, I packed it for my commute to work one morning because “surely it will get better?”

But, around the seventh or so time I had to re-read a page because my brain had not only absorbed none of it but it had actually become so unstimulated that it started to self-destruct, I suddenly remembered this life hack where you actually don’t have to finish a book.

You can, in fact, just stop reading mid-book and never think about it again.

So I decided to do that. I put this unbelievably boring book down and went on to do something more fun, which I think in that case was to stare out the window and think about global warming.

Then, later at work, still in disbelief that any book could actually be so boring, I went to my bag to ensure that these words were in fact the literary equivalent of a trombone.

However, when I reached into the pocket in my bag I’d put it in – slightly afraid the pocket itself had deteriorated just from holding the book – I couldn’t find it anywhere.

I looked in every other pocket of my work bag. I looked around my desk. I looked in my trash can thinking I had maybe subconsciously thrown it away out of self protection.

But it was absolutely nowhere, and, suddenly, the most interesting thing about this book became its lack of existence.

I started to become frantic in the most mild way someone can become frantic – like when a phone call you don’t want to make goes to voicemail or the intramural dodgeball league your friend signed you up for gets canceled.

Once I accepted that this book was definitely gone, I started to hope that either 1) someone had found the book and returned it for me or 2) someone from The Library pulled the book out of my bag while I wasn’t looking to save me from the very real possibility of being the first person to lose the ability to read due to sheer monotony.

And if neither of those things happened, I was hoping The Library and I could just call the whole thing off since, after all, they LET me check out that book, which really was “on them.”

But three weeks later when I received my first overdue notification email, I realized that this book had neither been returned NOR stolen in an attempt to save me – and that The Library does, in fact, want this book back.

Regardless of the fact that reading its words was like watching sandpaper dry.

Fortunately, because absolutely nobody else was trying to check this book out, The Library told me I had 15 more three-week automatic renewals coming my way before they really did anything.

Meaning The Library was willing to go almost a year of forgetting about this book, which most people who start to read it do anyway.

As promised, The Library continued to email me a renewal notice every three weeks, threatening me that I would “one day” have to return the book – “or else!”

I always dismissed these emails because frankly, even the reminders were starting to sound like a trombone.

But last week, I got The Final Reminder, calmly explaining to me that my renewals are up and it’s time to face “The Consequences.”

A part of me was hoping that the renewal notices would just reset back to 15 and I would just have to endure an email from The Library every three weeks until the day I die, at which point they would be transferred down to my next of kin – an affliction I am fully willing to impart on the children I don’t want to have.

But this reminder did not seem to leave any room open for a reset. The reminder mostly encouraged me to return it so we could “forget about the whole thing,” something I’d been trying to do since the day I opened that book.