I DEMAND SATISFACTION

I was the biggest bitch at the library today.

The public library in my town has adopted the self-checkout ways of the big-box stores of America - now there are four or five self-checkout stations, and usually only one to two people watching over the front desk.  This is how we do it nowadays: deal with the machine first, and, if necessary, the people. Well, the machines can’t feel my rage, unfortunately. They have remained unresponsive to my swearing. (I swear a lot, everywhere. Library, K-Mart, laundry mat, regardless of whether or not I’m around children or the elderly or any nuns.)

Lately, the self-checkout machines at the library have been receiving a lot of my swearing.  In the past month or so, I’ve had problems scanning my card.  The last few weeks, it hasn’t scanned at all.  It is an old card.  It’s so old that instead of my signature, my mother signed my name.  I was probably 7 when it was bestowed upon me, that little piece of plastic that held the world of wooden blocks and Babysitter’s Club books - I loved Ann M. Martin so much that I went to see her at the local bookstore when she did a book signing. I FUCKING LOVED THOSE BABYSITTER CLUB BOOKS.
So, in order to check out my items - mostly CDs of college radio crap nowadays - I have had to go up to the front desk.  Before today, I had asked twice for a new card. Twice I was denied by the Keepers of the Cards, as it still scanned at the front desk scanners - never mind that it was cracked and the bar code was peeling off.

Then came today.  Today!  DAY OF HOLY CRAP I NEED TO GO HOME AND DRINK A LOT OF GIN! I was still reeling from the rabies-inducing Valentine’s Day fuckery of yesterday, and I was not going to take the librarian’s refusal to give me a new card, as it was my tax-payer and God-given right.  At least, I felt that way.  So when my card refused to scan - and I stood there a good amount of time, waiting for it to be read - I went up the counter and handed the librarian my card.

“I need a new card,” I said.

She scanned it, and, of course, it scanned just fine for her.  OF COURSE.  She told me this, and then said that I “was probably just not holding it there long enough.”  YEP. I’M SURE THAT’S IT. Then she said, “Here, I’ll go over with you and show you.”  BECAUSE I DID NOT WORK AT A GROCERY STORE FOR TWO YEARS SCANNING ITEMS AND I AM NOT A COLLEGE GRADUATE.  Perhaps she thought I was mentally incapable or not patient enough to stand there for more than three seconds, holding my card under the little red lasers of mockery. YES. SURELY THAT’S IT.

It scanned for her at the self-checkout readers, too. I muttered “Thank you.”  Then I checked out my items, and, afterward, I tried to re-scan the card - I even held it at an angle, as she had - but NOTHING. That card was busted as shit.

I went back up the front desk, to the other lady who was working there, and snapped the card in half, then placed the two halves on the counter.

“I need a new card.”