The Book Wasn't Worth it but the Revenge Was

I did not walk into the library today with the intention of playing head games with the brittle-boned, fastidious, In-Rules-We-Trust librarian. But she, and her rule fixation, drove me to it.  Two polar opposites come together and you get this sort of chemical reaction.

She is eyeing me in my sweats and frizzy curls. I am eyeing her beige, ironed…is that a Dorothy Hamill haircut? I almost say it out loud. The way I would shout with excitement: Is that an original Spirograph?!!! if I were at a yard sale and discovered such a rare, vintage find.

If Dorothy had not become America’s sweetheart, winning the gold for her hairstyle (and some other medals, too, for figure skating), Library Lady behind the circulation desk would still be walking around in her former updo:

Under normal library check-out circumstances, if there is a problem with my account, they say, “You have some books overdue, would you like me to renew them?” or “You’re a good patron, let me adjust that fine.” Such favors and rule bending are exactly the sort of things to which I have come to expect as a middle-aged, suburban housewife in Upper Wonderful. Rules are in place for my age bracket to imply order, and bent to keep the peace — that peace, in this case, being between me and the pursed lipped woman behind the circulation desk, who refuses to let me check out a book because my fine is $14.47.

“You can’t check out any books unless your fine is below $10,” she says.

I open my wallet. All I have are three ones and some change. “Will this be enough?”

When I say will this be enough, I don’t mean mathematically, I mean, you know, as a gesture in the direction of bringing down the fine to aaah, close enough.

But she is a very literal woman, as pursed lipped women tend to be, and she says, “No. It needs to be below $10….but I can help you out by putting the book on the “hold shelf” right over there to save you the trouble of having to find it again.” The generosity is overwhelming.

It kills me that she is so insistent on not bending the rules. I have to drive home for one dollar? Pshh. I think about forgetting about the book and not returning until I am over it. But I want that book. I scour my ashtray and all the pockets and compartments in my car. Not enough.

I can’t drop it. I get angrier and angrier over “that type of person” that has to be so rigid. I start imagining the things in her life that made her this way, of all the times she has done this to people. She puts on that plain Jane exterior but inside she is gloating over her power of the word No.

Which is kind of funny because inside I am gloating over how I am going to make her pay. I race home and gather my revenge.

The phone rings. It is Skye in a very chipper mood.

“I called to speak with my lovely bride.”

I hold the phone at arm’s length and yell in a cigarette stained redneck accent, “BIIIIIITCH! Your husband’s on the liiiine!!”

I bring the phone to my mouth, change my voice and sweetly sing, “Hello?” In the background is the sound of change hitting the dresser. A lot of change.

“What are you doing?”

“Counting every last f**king penny, nickel and dime from the jar on your dresser.”

“What are you up to??” I can hear him smirking.

“The library lady made me drive all the way home for one measly dollar to bring my fine down to $10 so I’m going to pay off the entire fine with all the small change in the house. She’s the uptight type to stand there and double count my work, so my goal is to use all pennies, then all our nickels, then all our dimes. She’s not getting any of our quarters!”

“Nice project!”

“Thanks. Look, I’m busy. I’ll call you later.” click

I pull into the library, guarding my loaded down pocket so the coins won’t fly all over the minivan. I walk in planning how I will make sure I get her and not another librarian behind the desk. I grab my book off the “hold rack” and approach the counter where Library Lady is standing.

“I decided to make this worth my while,” I say, holding back a smirk. I reach into my pocket for a handful of coins and drop them noisily on the counter, while watching over the top of my glasses for a reaction. There is none. She is completely nonplussed. I am impressed.

I reach into my pocket and grab another handful and another and another. The dramatic effect is lost on her. She continues to stare at her computer screen to avoid the conflict brewing between us. Ninja dodge. She has decades of passive aggressive experience on me. She is polished.

I begin counting. I count five dimes, mixed with 20 pennies plus five nickels, because I can see that she is separating the coins by value. But she sees that I am separating them by f**k-with-her so she begins separating them into piles of $1.

I place each pile very closely to the next and think about accidentally shoving the book into the piles to combine them.

Not going over the top is very important to me. It is the hallmark of my value system.

While counting penny-nickel-dime combinations of 100, I listen to the friendly dialogue between the male librarian (who would have let me check out the book the first time) and the patron at the adjacent computer. I overhear him say, “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.”

To which I say, “I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, too. I started my first round of chemo yesterday.”

Finally. Finally! A reaction from Library Lady. She lifts her head to look at me for one-sixteenth of a second and looks back down at the pennies she is counting.

I want to turn the screw just a little bit more and say something about looking forward to universal healthcare. But as I said earlier, not going over the top…very important…hallmark…blah blah blah.

What’s satisfying to me is paying off a $14 library fine in pennies, nickels and dimes while there are three crisp one-dollar bills, that weren’t good enough earlier, hanging out of my wallet.

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