10.01.2002 - 10:30 a.m.

I will never understand how libraries want you to be so quiet, how they insist that you wear shoes, but still choose hardwood floors that make your steps go CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK.

It's especially bad when you are carrying a severely overdue book, the kind you've started not returning because the shame has grown that huge. You are not even sure why you are bringing it today, rehearsing a line about how it was in your trunk when your car went into the garage for two weeks (not true but it could have been), or maybe you will just say you lost it (equally untrue...), or just that you are sorry.

Clunk clunk clunk.

Looking up at the circulation desk, you realize that lady is on duty, the one you never did like ever since she called you on coming in barefoot all those years ago.

At least bare feet are silent.

I chickened out. I just left it on the edge of the desk. I'll get a bill.

Clunk clunk.

-stonebridge

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