Trust Your Gut, Get Your Bookmark Back

Ashen Wings

Today I was dropping off my library books and, as I slid What Would Jesus Really Do? into the bin, I thought I saw a flash of white. Was that my bookmark? I asked myself. I hesitated, wondering whether it’d be stupid to ask at the circulation desk for someone to check. At last I chickened out. Nah. I never leave bookmarks in books. I’ll go home and it’ll be in the silver cup on my shelf where it should be.

Well, you can tell what happened from the title of this post. I got home and one of my bookmarks was missing. So I emailed the library and then, realizing it’d still be open at 8:30 p.m., gave a quick call. The librarian didn’t see a bookmark in the Lost & Found but suggested I call back tomorrow. She explained the process — if something’s found in a book, they find out who checked the book out last via the bar code, and they set the item aside and flag the person’s account with a notification that it had been found. Which is cool/scary at once. I’ve often wondered what my library reading list would say about me…. The truth, I suppose.

Sounds like a lot of work for a bookmark, you’re thinking. Well, yeah, but it doesn’t cost me anything to pursue, so I might as well. It’s one of two white, floral-embossed leather bookmarks I bought in Venice, Italy, after having a nice conversation with a leatherworker on one of the side canals. While I’m not sentimentally attached to it, it’s one of the little things that makes my life pleasant. I own three (now two) leather bookmarks that get a lot of use, and I like using them rather than scraps of paper or cheap laminated bookmarks.

Of course, I should have just trusted my gut and asked at the desk at once. Over the years I’ve learned to listen to my instincts, but this time I let the fear of social embarrassment trump my gut. I need to work on that!

Edited next day: Yay, they found it for me!

drupagliassotti @ March 25, 2008