I have recently discovered the joys of placing holds on books that are available through interlibrary loan. That really is a wonderful service, and I find it hard to believe that I have not been using this catalog database for years already. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I am now fully addicted to hunting down books from the comforts of my own home, generally in-between activities with the kidlets. If I had to rely on going out to the library to find books on my own, I would never be able to find anything. Two kidlets prefer to go in completely different directions at any given time, and the third would plunk herself down on the floor somewhere to start reading her own books and I would be panicking trying to find her after chasing down her siblings. Placing holds and picking up the books when they are delivered to my library is much easier on my stress-levels.
Unfortunately for the librarians connected to the database, I will sit down and place a zillion holds at a time. If I am lucky, they will not all come in at once. Most of the time, however, they do. I will give the librarians a lot of credit for not rolling their eyes when they see me dragging myself in with three kidlets in tow and trying to keep a straight face that I'll be able to finish reading anything, let alone the whole stack of books, by the time they are due.
I absolutely love reading, but it can be both a blessing and a curse. Reading will take me on adventures that I would not dare brave on my own, and in the comforts of my own living room, too. However, once I start a book or series, I feel the compulsion to keep reading until I have covered every single last page. I have given up sleep both to finish reading and because I cannot stop thinking about storylines. The jury is still out on whether it is better to give up sleep entirely in order to finish reading when it's just going to keep me up anyway trying to figure out how it will all end. Staying awake in order to finish is no guarantee of eventually sleeping, particularly if the curtain closes with an incredibly suspenseful finish to the tale. On the other hand, if I attempt to sleep without figuring out Whodunnit or how it all ends, then I'm likely to be up for hours in my contemplation regardless of how simplistic or boring the closing might actually be. It might be best for me to simply not start reading unless I know I can finish in one sitting, but that is next to impossible to judge when kidlets are involved.
Today, I finished a particularly distressing murder mystery. I was not at all keen on the ending, despite having figured out the bulk of it about halfway through the story. The fact that I was separating parts of chapters with reading books to the kidlets, folding laundry, doing dishes, and engaging in banter with busy kidlets who still wanted Mommy's attention even when they were busy doing their own things made it a bit more difficult to digest. I attempted to eat a few cookies to ward off the feelings of blah that followed the last few pages of my book, but all they did was give me heartburn. So I then turned to my laptop.
Within just a few moments, I had my library card information entered into the nice, happy catalog database that has so recently started to enthrall me. I figured I would place holds on all of the book club selections I need to read over the next few months. Then I looked up the next book in the series that so distressed me this afternoon. Mumbling nasty things about the author for leaving me hanging like that, I also realized I had missed a few other books in the series, and placed holds on them, too. I looked into completing my read-through of a few other mystery series that I have only recently started.
After just a short period of time, I had placed more items on hold than I can possibly attempt to read in six months. And knowing my luck, they will all arrive at my library at the same time and need to be completed within the very same three week period. I suppose I can always renew the ones I do not finish, but I shall probably be having to choose between paying fines or placing holds on the same reading materials again in the future. It's a shame my librarians are such nice people. I'm already feeling guilty about the excess work I am making them do simply because of my spontaneous decision to dork around looking for books.
I think it's time I put my library card away and step away from the computer before my face gets plastered on a "For the love of all things sacred, cut up her library card!" poster. It might even get faxed to other libraries for miles around, lest I move to another area and try overly-holding books there, too. If libraries don't have such things, they should. Hopefully, I will never have to find out.
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