$!*@&*! Library Books!

Seriously, I have a major problem with library books.  We love our library and go all the time to get new books, but we seem to be forever on the hunt for missing items.  Theoretically, there should be 14 library books at our house at all times because each of the four kids is STRICTLY LIMITED to 3 books each and I generally have a fiction and a non-fiction that I'm reading at the same time.  That should be completely manageable.  Plus, we have a System!  All library books MUST be kept in a basket in the living room, easily retrievable when it's time to take them back.  14 books, The System, clear expectations, completely foolproof!

This plan works flawlessly for all of us...unless there was one book that we weren't quite finished with and kept, or one that we couldn't find and renewed online and still can't find, or one that someone got when they were at the library with a friend, or one that we got at the library up north, plus the school library books, plus classroom library books, plus the extra one that I found on the new book shelf from my favorite author that I had to get, plus the one that I had a hold request on and it just came in!

And the books do NOT want to adhere to The System.   They wind up under the car seats or under the bed or in the basement under the couch or shoved down in the side of the chair cushions or in a pile of papers in the kitchen or in a bag that went to the pool or a laundry basket full of dirty laundry from up north.  No one told our cleaning lady about The System and for months she was shoving them in the bookshelf full of our own books, never to be seen again! 

I have tried to come to terms with this problem.  I have made the kids pay their overdue fines with their own money.  I have forced them to retrace their steps and remember where they were reading the missing book (they all blame their sibling who 'wanted to read it after me').  We have held FBI-quality manhunts at 9pm for missing books.  But I am, undeniably, a librarian's daughter, and nothing makes me feel like more of a social degenerate that when I go to the library website, log in to check my account, and it says, "USER IS DELINQUENT".  Me!  A delinquent user!  How did this happen???  Why can't I get this under control?

I know, I know, I should be glad they are reading.  And be grateful that we can borrow books instead of forking out cash at a bookstore for all these millions of pages we are going through.  But it just drives me crazy when we go to check out our books and the little library clerk says sweetly, "It looks like you have a small fine due today..."