the library.

When we moved from the Ames area to Cedar Falls, one of the things I most sorely missed was a decent library.  I mean, the CF library was fine and all, if you were a middle aged guy looking for a warm, dry place to look at internet porn in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.  Unfortunately for me, I wasn't that guy, so I never fully appreciated the CF library.

After we moved here from Cedar Falls, I distinctly remember the first time I saw the library - it's memorable because it has these huge, scary statues of fire-claws or something outside, which I respect.  I felt like they were challenging-slash-beckoning me to come inside, like, "If thou be most brave of heart and pure of spirit, we bid thee enter and shall grant thee unlimited access to New Release Fiction and vegetarian cookbooks."  Basically, I figured that nothing could be more epic than that, and got super stoked to use our new library.

But it turns out I only heard part of the Fire Claws' schpiel.  I was about to learn that it gets even more epic.

This is only one of the Fire Claws.  It is actually not recommended that you take a photo of both of them at the same time, unless you're looking to launch the impetus of the apocalypse.  The More You Know.

After spending more time doing life with the statues, I have decoded the second half of their message to passersby: "Get thyself inside with haste, for within these walls abides a vast spread of knowledge and wisdom, a delectable feast for hungry pilgrims.  And more importantly, we don't charge late fees."  And then they make this big whooshing, crackling sound as they flare up, as if to say, "The Fire Claws Have Spoken."

So, with impunity I can check out millions of books and fail to return them in a timely fashion?  Well, if the Fire Claws insist, then who am I to argue?

So I've been saving all the money that I normally would have had to pay in late fees (an inevitability for someone with my level of commitment to apathy), and I'm getting really close to being able to install that Duck Tales-style pool of gold coins I've been talking about for years.  I don't need to save that money up for the kids' college educations, either, because our library has pretty much all they'll need for a liberal arts education, minus the idiotic co-eds.  So by my calculations, our local library has saved us approximately $8.3 billion in tuition and late fees while also imbuing our lives with depth, knowledge, and a pool full of money.

Does your local library do that?