You Can Sample Our Selection Without Stealing

This weekend I saw a program on television about books, and it wasn't on the Book-TV channel. Then today when I went home for lunch, NPR (National Public Radio) had a program about books. And when I opened the New York online newspaper I subscribe to, there was an article about Maurice Sendak's book "Where the Wild Things Are." (Do you know Spike Jonze made that 10-sentence, 338-word, 37-page book into a full-length film, which will be released on October 16th?)
It seems we've been hearing a lot lately about how books made of paper are disappearing, especially due to all the electronic books we now have.
The NPR program was about disappearing books, too. Rare books. But the thing that caught my attention was when they began talking about people stealing books, especially rare books, and how some were even stolen from libraries.
I guess I wouldn't worry too much about any rare book being stolen from our genealogical library, because we have alarms that go off if you try to take a book out. But in the public library, I can see how there would be opportunities to swipe a book or two.
Did you ever steal a book? I didn't, but that made me think of the time I worked in a hospital in Nebraska and some stealing from the kitchen was going on. They finally caught the employee, who had strapped a ham to the inside of each leg and slabs of bacon to each of her sides. They also found packages of pork chops and a chicken on various places of her body.
That made me wonder where a person would put a book that they'd lift from the library. Maybe they'd stuff it in the back of their pants, under their shirt. Or just put it in their book bag and walk out. Of course, books aren't the only things that could walk off from here. There are also audio tape and CD books, as well as magazines and newspapers. Occasionally, a computer mouse disappears. You have to ask for the DVDs and VHSs, so they don't count.
But you don't have to steal anything from here. You can get a free library card and check these things out. Even if you're supposed to return whatever within a certain length of time, you can ask to check it out longer.
You just need to come in and sample our selection.
Who knows, if you're especially fond of a particular item, you may find it on the bargain book rack someday and you'll be able to buy it for 25-cents or a dollar. Then it can be yours forever, without having to steal it.