vindication by proxy

Maybe I missed my calling.  I should have been a library detective, back when they had those.  I want to google that, to see if we still do have library detectives, but I won't. I'll leave a possibly erroneous statement in my blog. Imperfection: I'm trying to live with it.

Back to the library. Much like religious pilgrims returning to their homelands, I enter the quietest place. Even the jackhammers and fire truck sirens can't pierce the hum of peace, the cricking creaking of the stacks, the electric buzz of the overhead fluorescents. I've written about my shameless affection for libraries before.

Today's mission: check the shelf for a Per Petterson collection of short stories for a friend, who goes to the same library. I already had a trip planned, because, ironically, I was nearly finished with the Per Petterson book I was reading and needed another one.  (Must have one on deck, at all times.)  You see, my friend is being accused of not returning this short story collection and is even being charge a whopping $40 to replace it. He swears he returned it, knows that he did, but his word wasn't enough.

I hooked him up though.  Photographic evidence.  Right there on the shelf. Vindicated! Exonerated!  Sweet literary justice.