Chuck Zumbrun

Tales from Skunk Hill

At The Library

I was at the library today, renewing my PLAC card [1]. While I was waiting for the librarian to punch through the 40 or 50 screens it takes to do that a man with a couple of young, maybe 10-12 year old, girls came up to the terminal next to me.

I tried not listen, really, but the stations at the library are very close together. They returned a book they thought was lost. After doing that the librarian took that book off their record and said they still owed $23 in fines, and said they couldn’t check books out until they’d paid it down to $10.

The girls were standing there holding books, and their dad said, “we can’t check those out now.”

Then they stepped off to the side and he looked in his wallet, figuring (I’d guess) whether he could find $13 so his kids could get a couple of library books.

Oh my God, I thought. I had a wallet full of twenties. I’d never miss one. Could I hand the librarian one and say, “pay their fine down?”

I didn’t. And I’m deeply ashamed.

1. Public Library Access Card. Yeah, I know, it’s like saying ATM machine.

2 responses to “At The Library”

  1. anne Avatar
    anne

    I was in your favorite store last month (wally mart) and a couple with 2 small children in front of me, had a cart with 3 gallons of milk, dried beans a big chunk of cheese and were trying to use food stamps or snap or whatever they are called today and they were only authorized for 1 lb of cheese not 2lbs of cheese. They scrounged around for the extra $4 and couldn’t find it. So the clerk took it off their cart. I was standing there with hundreds of dollars of groceries so I told the clerk to run the cheese up on my bill and give it to them. She looked at me in disbelief and said are you sure, but did so. And then called out to the couple leaving and said here’s your cheese. I felt good all day. And then the clerk after she ran my groceries scanned her employee discount for me, she said it won’t cover what you did, but it helps. That was almost instant payback.
    But then for my shame story (also at wallymart)where the struggling families shop. It was Thanksgiving morning and since we were having a late thanksgiving I was shopping (we won’t talk about the moral aspects of forcing minimum wage workers to work on a holiday by frequenting their store)and as I was putting groceries in my car a woman neatly dressed in clean jeans with a bottle of Windex came up and said I’m not asking for a handout, but could I wash your car windows. I said no. It wouldn’t have hurt me one bit to give her $5 and my windows did need to be cleaned. How desperate do you have to be to do that? She wasn’t begging (trying to offer a service)and was polite. I felt like a scum and even tried to find her on my way out of the parking lot and didn’t have any luck.

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Shame story for me: I was getting a mammogram and while I was leaving a woman came out of the mammogram area with a nurse hot behind. I was obviously not meant to hear any of what went on, but really couldn’t help it. She was telling the nurse that she couldn’t afford further tests and also couldn’t be off work anymore so was refusing further testing for what I assume was a positive read on her mammogram. I didn’t think fast enough…just stood there with my mouth hanging open as she ran out crying. Still haunts me that I didn’t just quietly tell office staff that her test was paid if they wanted to do it right away. I think it all balances out for us. Sometimes we get it right and sometimes not but I like to believe in the positive humanity in people.

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