Patty shares This Tale From Illinois where floretta Jones was sure someone had stolen her library card and used it to rack up more than $450 in late fees and unreturned video rental charges. A short time later, however, while being interviewed by police, Jones was singing a different tune.
“It’s your fault for not checking identification when people check out material,” Jones said, the tone of her voice rising with each word. “And I’m not going to be treated like a common thief, especially from some petty librarian. You’re going to hear from my attorney.”
This lady’s a fantastic liar
Boy, it doesn’t sound like it took her long to spill the beans. It was actually rather comical.
I might question the staff on why they allowed seventeen or so videos to be taken out on one card, and a new card at that? We have a pretty small video collection, relatively speaking, at our library, and if people got to take out up to seventeen at a shot, or even over a week’s period… that would decimate it fairly quickly. I do hope this causes a policy revision. I don’t know if I’d limit it to two movies, like my library, but I’d sure as rain limit it to something under, um, fifteen.
I wondered as a patron why they limited me to two items on my first checkout. Now I understand why: and this is a case in point.
What is it about life and fiction?
There is a reason life is so interesting, especially in libraries. Nobody could possibly make up all the wacky cases that are run into in the profession.
I do hope some budding librarian-novelist would use this case as a base to spin an interesting yarn perhaps. This is a case that sounds like it could easily be made into a thriller on identity theft.
Except for the wee problem that the truth was indeed told at the end…might make the story harder to create