Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Whatever happened to common politeness?
Whenever I'm in a situation where I have to walk in front of someone like at the bookstore or video store when they're looking at stuff on the shelves I always say excuse me. I must have been well trained because I can't not do it. I can't remember the last time someone said it to me as they walked in front of me as I was scanning the shelves for books or movies.

What brought this on? Maybe you heard about the big library heist today in Chattanooga? A woman stole two Consumer Reports magazines. What does this have to do with politeness? Let me 'splain.

My husband has started shopping for a new car so I stopped at the library today to look at Consumer Reports. Our library won't let you check them out but they have a copy machine in the lobby (10 cents a copy) and you're welcome to photocopy any page you want which is what I usually do. Today when I went in some old geezer was using it. I went and got the magazines I wanted and he was still using it. So I went to the desk and got change for the machine and went to stand near the machine to show I was next. After standing there for 15 minutes I started making impatient movements. The man then asked if I wanted to make copies and I said yes please. (I WANTED to say Duh!!) He said, "Well, you'll have to wait because I have at least another 30 minutes worth of copies to make." I told him I only had a couple and perhaps I could make mine. He said no he had to get his done first. I went to the desk and complained. The woman said it was a shame he was taking so long and that was all. She wouldn't do anything about it. I slap the magazines down and left. I went and ran my errands and decided despite my annoyance, I'd go back to the library. It had been 40 minutes since I'd left. Surely, he'd be done by now. I walked into the library and he was still at the machine and he still had a stack of papers left and wasn't letting anyone else use the machine.

I walked over to the 2 magazines I wanted, stuck them under my arm and left. When I got home I told my family that if Bookman or any other library cops (Seinfeld fans will get this) came looking for me I fled to Canada. Michael said he heard they don't charge library fines in Canada so they wouldn't extradite me!

My husband said he'll use gloves to read the magazines just in case. LOL!

I fully intend to return the magazines but in the meantime I'll be on the lam...

1 comment:

Budd said...

I am pretty sure you just implicated yourself in a felony. You just better hope that no librarians read this post.

It is all good as long as you take them back.

That dude was a complete jerk. It would be cheaper to buy the book or magazine than copy every page.