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Our Angie decides to save money by joining the library

by Angie Vicars

Dear readers, I have discovered an incredibly innovative way to save money, if you're not me. You can join the library. There you can borrow all sorts of items to read or view or listen to. And when you're done, you simply return them. Or until you're done, you can even renew them. But in my case, joining the library was a very costly decision. In fact, weeks later, I'm still paying it off.

I know what you're thinking. I went about this wrong. Well, I admit it. You're right. Are you satisfied now? But I got off to a perfectly good start, I assure you. I chose two unabridged novels, Hearts in Atlantis and White Oleander. But I didn't read the free parking notice on the Lawson McGhee Web site before I went. So I paid $2 to park downtown for 30 minutes. The good news is—my library card was free.

Hearts in Atlantis is so long there are 20 CDs in the unabridged version. However, I've been known to re-read novels over 900 pages. So 20 CDs didn't seem like too much, before I started listening to them.

I listened for over 400 miles, all the way to Macon, Georgia. I listened as I drove around Macon shopping, on breaks from a two-day college speaking engagement. I listened all the way back to Knoxville. I even listened while I ran errands on the weekend. That's when I noticed I was only on CD number 10. And the story, in my professional opinion, had mostly quit moving, much like driving on Broadway between traffic lights. Every glimmer of hope was simply a tease that disappeared as quickly as I stepped on the gas.

Woe is me, I thought, deciding it was time for a change of pace. So I put in some music, and put CD number 10 somewhere in the car.

It may still be somewhere in the car, hiding, mocking me, knowing it's AWOL. But if it is, it's not under the floor mats. It's not in the back with the spare tire jack. It's not in the glove compartment. And it's not in the pocket I put on the sun visor. It's not even in the caddy where I keep the CDs.

As the due date approached, I decided to renew the set online to buy time until the missing item turned up. (Notice I didn't say, "until I found it.") It only required a matter of mouse clicks for me to renew White Oleander, along with the second set of Hearts in Atlantis CDs. However, my first set of Hearts was spoken for. In the time since I had checked it out, some evil person intent on exposing me had placed a hold on CDs 1-10. And the calendar said they were due the very next day.

So that night, I paid a visit to Borders where I purchased the entire 20 CD set because that's the only way it was available. But I didn't mind paying $58 because the evil person who placed the CDs on hold would now have no reason to rat me out.

Unless of course, they cared what the CD looked like. Or unless I was trying to fool the librarian, who seemed to have a habit of flipping through the sets to make sure that all the CDs were, in fact, inside. The library version had a face that was plain, except for some writing that identified it. But from the gleaming surface of my newly purchased version, the face of Anthony Hopkins was staring at me. It could be because he starred in the movie. But I think it's really because he knew what I did. His character in the novel would've known in a heartbeat.

That's when I took some free advice from my coworker, Larry. Burn the CD, he said, and give the library that copy. Then take your new copy back to Borders. They'll re-credit your card, and who's going to care? Well, except the library might get pissed off at you. They might call you up in the middle of the night and play part of the CD where Anthony Hopkins sounds like Hannibal Lecter. "You know something happened, don't you? I think you do."

As I burned the CD, I turned the volume to mute. I also returned the set in the library's drop box where there were no prying eyes to inspect the contents. Then I walked in to have my parking ticket validated. But I should've known better.

"There's no free parking in this garage," the librarian told me, pushing my ticket back across the counter. "You parked in the wrong one. The garage on Walnut Street is the one that's free." Thankfully, I found some change in the car. It cost 75 cents for five minutes inside.

And when I went back to Borders, I hardly fared better. "We can't credit your card," the woman told me, after I handed her the set of CDs. "We just give in-store credit, when the shrink wrap is missing. See, it says so on the sign."

"You mean that big sign, right behind you?" I asked. "The one I didn't read when I bought the set." I left my Hearts behind the cash register, in exchange for $58 in credit good only at Borders for a limited time.

And so, dear readers, here's a final tally of the money I spent by joining the library. Parking downtown twice, $2.75. Set of 20 CDs at Borders, $58. At least one gallon of gas, for all the backing and forthing, $1.38.