thursday september 4

today i went to the gladstone library to pick up a book that i'd put on hold. when i walked up to the checkout counter, a pile of comic-book literature (not exactly comic books, but books about comics) sat in the scanning area. after glancing around to see if anyone was about to come check them out, i moved them to one side in order to quickly check out my book. however, when it got to the point where the scanner automatically recognizes your books, one about marvel comics was added to my list of checkouts -- i guess because it was still sitting too close to the scanning area.

without any sort of "back" or "cancel" option, and with no librarian around to help (the only one at the counter seemed deeply engrossed with someone else), i considered my options. ultimately, i decided that the pile of books i'd moved aside was probably meant to be returned, and had just been put in the wrong spot, so there'd be no harm if i took the marvel comics book and dumped it into the actual return slot.

still, while i was happy with this solution, i sort of hope the book pile was meant to be checked out by someone who returned to the counter 20 seconds later and for the life of him couldn't figure out where his book about marvel comics had gone.