Debt In Deep

A few weeks ago, I was an extra in a film being done by a friend. The idea was that I was one of several students in a college class, and so I gathered a few items to put in my backpack that would suggest that. I had pens, paper, books and such. One of the books was Wuthering Heights, which I was reading at the time. I loaned it to one of the other extras, who needed some kind of prop herself. I neglected to get it back from here, and since I couldn't bear to miss any reading time, I got another copy of the book from the library to replace the copy I'd owned.

The original copy was returned to me, and I resolved to return the library book at the earliest opportunity. As it wasn't necessary for a couple weeks more, there was no urgency. By the time two weeks had come around, I somehow forgot in spite of receiving a reminder that it was due. It would have been so easy to at least renew it on the computer, and yet I didn't. I hung on to the book and it incurred a late fee.

The fee is seventy-something cents, so I can manage to pay it readily, unlike the late fees I used to rack up when I was younger. There were numerous times when I couldn't go to the library for months or more because I owed some unimaginable sum like forty dollars. In those days I would more often go to the used book store, which is funny to think of now. I might as well have taken the money I spent buying books and devoted it to paying down my library debt in order to get free books.

Anyway, I hardly need pay the fine immediately, since they of course don't suspend lending privileges until you've in to them for some real money. The likelihood is, though, that I will pay it the moment the clerk I am checking a book out from brings it up. It makes me wish the library had one of those automatic checkout machines, like the libraries back in Arizona all did years ago. That's one thing that my home state has over California: the civic institutions have reasonably current technology.