The One Place Where You’re Always Carded

(I work in a library. I happen to be serving my neighbor.)

Neighbor: “I’ll take these.”

Me: “Very well, sir. May I see your library card?”

Neighbor: “My what?”

Me: “Oh, if you don’t have one, I could register you.”

Neighbor: “What’s a library card?”

Me: “Uh, you make an account and receive a card. That’s how we keep track of items and due dates.”

(Not the best explanation, but I’m still surprised a man in his fifties doesn’t know what a library card is.)

Neighbor: “But I thought the books were free.”

Me: “They can be borrowed for a certain of time, and bringing them late or losing them results in a fee.”

Neighbor: “Forget it. If I wanted to pay for paper, I would’ve gone to the bookstore.”

(He leaves the books and walks out. The woman and child behind him can finally step forward.)

Woman: “I wonder if he’s the type to get angry and ramble about identity fraud when asked for contact information.”

Child: “What would Nana say?”

Woman: “I think something like, ‘older doesn’t necessarily mean smarter.’”

(I get people that grew up with the Internet might not know much about a library, but how does that happen to an old man? My grandpa said he’d lived in town his entire life.)