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Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Lost Library Book

I just paid $32.45 to replace a lost library book, and I feel great.

The book was The Lego Adventure Book: Vol. 3, and I’ve looked in all the places it should be, as well as some places it shouldn’t.

I thought about buying a copy on Amazon, because the book is $6 cheaper than the price the library gave me. I would have had to wait for the book to arrive, stress out about whether or not the delivery person was going to go against my delivery instructions and leave it on my porch as a target of opportunity, drive the book to the library, and pay for the processing charge of $7.50.

So I just paid for the book. 

It’s only the second book I’ve ever had to replace. (The first was War and Peace, which I still haven’t finished, but after finding the book I thought was lost, I’m now the owner of my very own copy. I can let it sit on my shelf as a reminder of both my failed attempt at reading a Russian literary classic and my failure at being the type of person who is so organized she couldn’t possibly lose a library book. I, on the other hand, am the type of person who can evidently lose something the size of a microwave.)

My point is $66 is a small price for access to all of the books we’ve borrowed over the past (let’s say) 6 years. That’s less than $1 per month.

And check this out (no pun intended): if I find the Lego book at any time during the next year, I can take it into the library for a refund of the price of the book! No one told me that when I lost War and Peace, so I’m not sure if that’s always been the policy, or if it’s new. Either way, I feel so much better about the book no longer being something I’ll never locate, but a thing I might get to find.



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