donations

I love the public library system. Millions of books at my disposal - and it's even better now that everything is online. I can search for books to my heart's content - click a link and presto! the books are waiting for me in a neat stack a few days later. Books from three counties away are trucked to my little library that is only four miles from my front door. Amazing.

I am continually in awe that I can read books and watch movies for free.

Only lately, it's not been so free. Right now I have $9.30 in late fees that stacked up because one random movie got stuffed underneath a pile of magazines to recycle. Six days later, I realized it was there. Do the math - that's a buck a day for a movie that was so old it wouldn't have even sold for $2 at a garage sale.

Whenever the library has its little $5 fundraiser, I politely decline. Mainly because I know that I've already contributed five times that amount over the past year because of books that somehow manage to disappear exactly the same day they're due. I must be picking popular books too - because rarely will the system let me renew online. Someone else has requested that item. It even happened on an Aaron Copland CD! Who listens to classical music anymore? Other than homeschooled kids who are forced to learn music history.

I fail to understand why my $5 donation could be tax-deductible, but my $25 late fees aren't. It's all going to the same place isn't it? I should write a letter to my representative. Maybe he can do something about this travesty of non tax-deductible donations to the library that I make on a regular basis.

I guess the only difference is that I'm not making them voluntarily. I've got better things to spend my money on, like Redbox rentals that take me three days to watch and all the gas I spend driving to town to drop off one book at a time when I finally find it.

My life is all about donations. I'm just not getting any credit for it - I'm getting debited.