Library saga, continued

Well, I guess I get a library card after all. Here is what has happened since I last posted:

-My dad called a county commissioner that he knows. "If we're going to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses, it seems like she should be able to get a library card," my dad said. "I'm just glad someone wants to read a book," the county commissioner said.

-The county commissioner made some phone calls on my behalf. He told me to call the library director, who would be waiting for my call.

-Before I called the library director, my dad saw another county commissioner, who said that if I still had problems, we should give her a call as well. Clearly, all county commissioners will be touting the achievement of getting me a library card in the next election.

-Today I spoke with the library director. He filled out the application form for me and put a library card in the mail to me, so I should have it by Monday. He asked me to tell him what happened at the branch and said that really, the post office thing was not a hard and fast rule and it really could have gone either way. For one thing, he pointed out, that library branch is next to a post office, so they really should be used to this. But when I suggested changing the website to say what they really want in terms of identification, he demurred, again saying that it was really sort of a discretionary rule.

-While I am happy to have a library card, and thankful to everyone in the process who helped me to obtain one, I will say that the library director was not as outraged as I would have hoped. I will not lie, I was already having fantasies about testifying before the county commissioners and the city council, perhaps in front of a giant banner that said, Libraries for All! And they would have changed the rule of the library system and called it Molly's Rule. And then maybe I could have been in the newspaper, with someone handing me a library card that had been blown up like one of those Publisher's Clearinghouse checks. I thought maybe I would wear my new John Steinbeck shirt for the occasion to promote the importance of literacy. And then I would be so popular and beloved in town that I would run for mayor or they would rename a library for me or something. But now I'm just getting my library card in the mail.

-I do have to wonder, what about all the poor children whose fathers don't know any county commissioners?

-Where was I when the library director returned my call? Barnes & Noble, buying some books.