One Of The Most Popular Teenage Lies You Told Your Parents (when they asked where you were going )

I was always a voracious reader. My parents would find me under the blanket with a flashlight reading well after lights out. It was their fault. During a teacher/parent conference at my DOD elementary school (Department of Defense) upon asking why my math grades were so abysmal my teacher told them not to worry since I was reading at such an advanced grade level I would eventually catch up in arithmetic. So I was allowed to read, read, read and that is what I did for my first two or three years of school. So when the kids got out their math books,  I  opened my latest find, removed my bookmark and continued reading Tolstoy (just kidding). Don't worry, he's a "reader"...was I some sort of savant?
Who was qualified to make such a brilliant assessment? In essence she was saying since I could read the numbers so well it didn't matter if I couldn't figure out what they meant.

You see, I could read the word ignorant but had no clue it was what it was determined I was when applying for parochial school the following year.  They didn't care how great a reader I was. I was expected to know my addition, subtraction, multiplication and division tables. I think I blinked a couple times when my parents informed me of that sad fact. A fun summer ensued filled with hours of math flash card memorization and constant maternal supervision. I was in hell!

The preceding preamble (redundancy is an underappreciated work of art) is simply to point out that I have been and remain a voracious reader. I even love to read subtitles. (My affection for them started years ago when I discovered Kurosawa's films Yojimbo and 7 Samurai.) I always want to hear the actor's voice in their own language. It's their voice I hear while reading. The correct emotional context is vital as opposed to dubbing after the fact.

As adults we spend money on books. Book stores have built empires on our need to peruse and flip the pages of a newly printed novel or time tested classic. The pursuit of reading material may be joyous time spent but it has become expensive. Paperbacks can cost $12 or more and hard covers can go for $25-$50 or more. Then came the E-Readers. You could download virtual shelves of books many of them free or even if you had to pay it was usually no more than $10. I had to have one!

But a $10 e-book to a voracious reader is like muscatel to a wino. The cheaper it is, the more you can afford to buy. At some point you either wind up detoxing in a drunk tank or the poor house due to credit card debt. There has to be a better way to satisfy the habit.

The LIBRARY! Yes that place you always told your parents you were headed to to study for a quiz with Bobby or Paula. Kryptonite to parents. The perfect response. They always wanted you to be studious and hearing you were going to the library was one of the things that brought music to their ears and tears to their eyes. Of course you were spending the time behind the building smoking cigarettes and either attempting to or allowing someone to get to first or second base. You might have popped inside to use the bathroom or be seen entering but that was the extent of your research project by way of the Dewey Decimal System.

The shocking thing is most modern libraries offer e-books to their card holders. Whaaat? No way! Yeah way. Would I lie about the library...at my age? Heck no. It was exciting news and I headed for my local library only to find my card was so old as to no longer be in their computer system. No worries. I took out a new one. My fingers trembled as I set things up on my phone, iPad and laptop. Heavy duty reading coming my way for FREE!  My joy was short lived.

The selection was limited and of the two specific authors whose books I wanted to read, neither had a single e-book listed in my local library system (3 different locations). Between the two authors there are about 25 or so novels...many of which had become films or TV series seen around the world. In frustration I decided to see if there was a catalog elsewhere that might include their titles and checked the New York Public Library (as seen in Ghostbusters...the real one) website. They had them all. Great!
Now all I had to do was have an address in New York, go there and apply for the card in person with proof of residency. Not going to happen.

In continuing my web search I came across a blog that had a list of public libraries offering non resident cards...for a fee. At first I was taken aback regarding having to pay a fee to borrow books. Some went as high as $100 per year and others as low as $25. Folks were posting additional locations not on the list accepting non residents and lo and behold a neighboring (40 minutes away) city offered a card for $35 per year.  The blog explained the cost was commensurate with what an individual living in that city might pay in taxes going toward maintaining the library system. That made perfect sense. It also sounded like a killer bargain.
I checked the neighbor's website and the e-book catalog for both authors was readily available. I hopped in the car and made the trip.

What a beautiful campus. It even has a coffee shop with snacks right at the entrance, sending that wonderful, fresh ground, roasted scent of java wafting through the open doors. I was happy and hadn't even gone in the building proper.
Signing up was a breeze. I paid my fee and while I was waiting for my "green card" to be finalized, my eyes fell upon a couple of boxes atop a table off to my left. The clerk was droning on about classes they offered days and evenings (even though I told her I lived too far away and I was only there for the e-books). I used a break in her sales pitch to ask a question to which I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. "Aren't those 3D printers sitting over there?" She said they were and at the service of all full fledged library card members at no charge. I must have looked stunned. How could they offer something so...so...COOL at a library? As I stood with mouth agape she informed me that you simply call ahead to book a time. They supply the material for sculpting (at no charge!) based on plans (programming) you can get from sites specializing in such. She said there had been folks who have made car parts, repair items for electronics, handles, etc. I was gobsmacked. Who knew? Certainly not me. What happened to the dusty, boring, musty smelling library of my youth? Times have certainly changed. I am sure there are only a few library systems offering fee use of 3D printers or have coffee shops as part of their complex but if this is where things are headed I say, YAY! Let's go to la biblioteca and I'll make you something in 3D!

So moms and dads...the kids might be lying about why they go to the library. Don't worry. You probably did the same thing. The difference today is they might actually be GOING to the library. It is a way cooler place than it ever was for us.
Still, ask where they're going, who they're meeting or going with and what time they'll be home. Our parents didn't have cell phones with GPS trackers or all the tools parents have at their disposal today to keep an eye on their children BUT still ask! It lets your kids know that, even though you might be annoying and a pest...you really care.