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My excitement for renting a PO box has been quickly tamped down by the number of mailpieces I've received that were attempts to extract money from some other person.

I've had collections sent on me once, for a library fine I was too ashamed to pay in person for so long that the librarians contracted an external service to extract it from me, all eight dollars and seventy-five cents of it. I had hoarded a copy of 1984, which I read and didn't feel like returning when it was due. I don't remember if I returned it late, or not at all.

When I biked home for my afternoon tea break, I decided to leave my pack in my office. I didn't consider the possibility that I'd want to bring a book back to work in the evening, but with forty pages left of a chapter I needed to finish reading, I had no choice but to figure out a way to carry it without feeling dumb about having a second bag in my office.

The book fit neatly inside the front of my jacket, like a breastplate that further insulated my torso against the wind. I hoped that the action of pedaling would keep pushing the bottom of the book back upwards into my jacket, instead of causing it to fall into traffic.

I got funny looks trying to dig a big red library hardcover out of my clothing while walking my bike through the building to my office.

11 February 2014 17:59