my thumb is faster than your eye
it seems like the poor date stamp has been put out of business. i joined the library today, and as it was my first time, the youth at the front desk asked me if i'd like to be shown how to use the self-service checkout. it's not dissimilar to the self-service checkouts at supermarkets, but i'd never come across one in a library. it felt a bit futuristic, like any second someone was going to go whizzing past me on a hoverboard and laugh at me for not wearing spaceboots or something. i scanned my library card, and placed each book in turn on the white surface of the scanner, waiting for the beep before removing it. after the last book, the machine helpfully printed a receipt telling me which books i'd borrowed, the dates i'd have to return them by, the phone number of the library, a 24-hour renewal phoneline and a website where i could also log on and renew my books! as i left, gazing in awe at the technological advances in book-borrowing, a small child tutted as it moved to my vacated spot and started scanning a selection of picture books at something approaching lightspeed.
as i walked home from running errands, a ridiculously heavy bag of shopping in one hand (because for the sake of the planet you must fit all your food in the bag you brought with you) and an unwieldy stack of library books clutched under my other arm, smiling at strangers on the street, i realised something. i really love living in the suburbs. of course, there's the man who seems to mow his lawn every single day with a lawnmower that sounds like a cow, the shops that seem to open and close when they feel like it, not in any particular pattern, and the curtain-twitching neighbourhood watch ladies who stop well-mannered teenagers on the street and ask them to take messages to their mothers whilst their eyes are constantly roving around in case they miss something... but it's great! less than twenty minutes on the train into urban sprawl, but with all the benefits of the countryside. oh, and my local library has a scrabble club. now that's quality entertainment - who needs a multiplex?!
as i walked home from running errands, a ridiculously heavy bag of shopping in one hand (because for the sake of the planet you must fit all your food in the bag you brought with you) and an unwieldy stack of library books clutched under my other arm, smiling at strangers on the street, i realised something. i really love living in the suburbs. of course, there's the man who seems to mow his lawn every single day with a lawnmower that sounds like a cow, the shops that seem to open and close when they feel like it, not in any particular pattern, and the curtain-twitching neighbourhood watch ladies who stop well-mannered teenagers on the street and ask them to take messages to their mothers whilst their eyes are constantly roving around in case they miss something... but it's great! less than twenty minutes on the train into urban sprawl, but with all the benefits of the countryside. oh, and my local library has a scrabble club. now that's quality entertainment - who needs a multiplex?!