So I'm not really not allowed to check out books from the UNCG library, but for a while I was. I had somehow amassed a significant amount of library fines. $20-30 worth. I refused to pay them on sheer idiocy of the policy. Actually I think it was $32.
Seriously? Library fines?
Last time I checked being a bibliophile wasn't illegal. It's not like people want to keep books. Does there really need to a program in place to ensure that people bring books back? Charging me every day I do not bring your books back does not give me incentive to bring them back. It pisses me off and similar to most angry small children it produces the opposite effect.
I think this is a public school thing. There were no fines at my expensive private school. Although as much as they charged I imagine the thought process there was that every student bought at least 3 library books off the jump. And the security guards gave you peppermints. And golf tips. Going to the library there was generally a much more pleasant experience.
Not to mention the books that I kept too long were books about work! They were science books! More specifically they were Confocal Microscopy books. I know that no one else on this campus wanted those books because I happen to be the ONLY confocal microscope technician here. So why they were pissed off that I had them for too long is beside me.
So, I finally did turn them in. And then for some extraneous reason I decided that I wanted to get more books out from the library.
Unbeknownst to me I had fines and they wouldn't let me check out books. Apparently once you get library fines they don't trust you with their precious booty anymore. They think it establishes some kind of criminal pattern. I'm surprised they still let me vote in the student government elections and carry sharp objects down the hall. They treated me like some public school felon. I wouldn't be surprised if they were cinching up the straps, readying the sponge and plugging the chair in.
The fact that I laughed at them and told them the only way they were going to get their $32 was if they pried it from my cold dead fingers probably did not help the situation.
Years pass. (Two to be exact.) I've decided that maybe I will pay their obnoxious fines but I'm not writing them a check or giving them cash; if they want their money they'll have to get it from my paycheck.
I am not a patient person. Especially when I'm trying to do something that I don't feel I should do in the first place. I call the library and inquire about how to have payroll deduct my fines from my paycheck. Of course the student at the desk has no clue and transfers me to someone in the bowels of the library bureaucracy. This lady does not answer her phone; I do not have all day so I just saunter on over to the library to talk to this woman. I prefer to do business in person anyways.
I think the library is where xenophobes must work. This woman's office was in an office within an office that was in a cul-de-sac in a corner. She was literally hiding from the sun and students. (Not that I blame her about the students part. I avoid them as well. I find that they are stupid.) I'm pretty sure that I scared the bejeezus out of her; probably because I found her and knew her name. She had that scared deer-in-the-headlights look that I've seen on people interacting with my mother. Magically, after a quick 2 minutes of conversation my library fines were erased. I like to think it's because I'm extremely persuasive and have infallible logic but I think it was because she was convinced I was going get closer to her.
I may or may not have lurched at her several times to get my point across. I really didn't want to pay those library fines. I like to make a stand on things I believe in.
I wonder if I can convince them that my current fines were incurred during the snow when the university was closed?
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