Is That A Banana
In Your Book Drop Or Are You Just Happy To See Me
by Roz Warren
Life holds
plenty of surprises, especially when you work at
a public library. Last week, for instance, we
found a banana in the book drop. Naturally,
I logged onto my favorite librarian Facebook
group to share the news.
The first
response?
Curious George
strikes again!
Then:
We once found
a melted banana split in ours.
After which my
fellow librarians began posting about the items
they’d found over the years in their own
book drops:
A full diaper.
A dead rabbit.
An empty wine
bottle.
A used condom.
We found
underpants in ours yesterday. At least they were
clean.
A banana was
beginning to sound like a relatively delightful
book find. Reports of more discoveries poured in:
A slice of
bacon.
A cell phone.
An empty soda
can.
A live lobster.
A laptop.
An ice cream
sandwich. Thankfully it was winter, so it hadn’t
melted.
A coffee maker.
People be crazy.
As the
comments continued, I began to wonder. Was there
anything that HADN’T been left in a library
book drop?
A dead fish.
A live chicken!
A small tub of
unopened cottage cheese.
A cat.
A bra.
A dirty love
letter! (And yes, we all read it.)
In my own
workplace, a lit joint in the book drop is not
unheard of.
As librarians
warmed to the topic, book drop discoveries came
in fast and furious:
A frog!
Pancake syrup.
A lizard.
An unopened
box of sanitary pads.
An open box of
Bisquick.
A full bottle
of Jim Beam.
A bag of
grapes.
A carton of
eggs.
One of my co-workers
used to get gifts in the book drop from a secret
admirer.
Think that
working in a library is all sunshine and roses?
Contemplate these book drop finds and think again:
A dead bird in
a shoe box with a note threatening the life of
our library mascot, a Cockatiel.
Seventeen
snakes.
A finger. Yes,
an actual finger. We never found out whose. And
it was my first week on the job.
Gravel. And
ground beef. We thought somebody had been
murdered. We had to throw every book in the drop
away.
A severed foot.
Thankfully, plastic. Obviously someone’s
idea of a joke.
Library
patrons can be mysterious:
We once found
a wrapped Subway sandwich in the book drop. Later
that week, we also found one on the shelves.
Weird.
Nothing odd in
our book drop yet. But someone once put a hot dog
in our suggestion box.
Somebody just
left a deer head on our roof.
Last week
somebody removed a garden gnome from a nearby
house and put it in our book drop.
Some folks
just don’t deserve a book drop:
My library got
rid of our book drop the second time it was set
on fire.
Some idiot
poured gasoline in ours. Now we have security
cameras.
Our book drop
was destroyed. We don’t know who did it, but
we came to work one morning to find that somebody
had beat the living hell out of it.
We removed the
book drop from our middle school library after
the first wad of gum was deposited. Now the
kids have to return books in the drop slot at the
circ desk. #nasty. #notpaidenough #peoplecanbegross.
Finally?
Librarians would like to remind you that Real
Patriots don’t include the library book drop
in their celebration of our nation’s birth:
If we don’t
close our drop over July 4th weekend, people put
fire crackers in it.
Library life
is full of discovery. And when it comes to the
book drop, it seems, anything is possible! Which
is why I’m hoping that the next time I open
ours, I’ll find it packed with hundred
dollar bills. Or Oreo cookies. I’d even
settle for that lit joint.
A librarian
can dream, can’t she?
This
essay first appeared on www.zestnow.com
|
