I’d like to say, “I’ve been thrown out of better places than this,” but I can’t. In fact, I can’t think of a better place.  

The Orange County Library System is about as good as things get… and it is giving me the heave-ho. 

Nothing personal, just geographic. OCLS has decided it will no longer provide “fee cards” for those who don’t live in that county, the kind of card I have held for the 30 years since I left Apopka for Eustis. 

This is a nerd’s nightmare. OCLS is not the only library in the world, just the best one I know of. We have a system up here and it is serviceable, but not in the same league. It’s like thousands of titles as opposed to hundreds, with all sorts of obscure stuff that Reader Nerds like to poke around and look for.  

I recently finished “Semi-Colon: The Past, Present and Future of a Misunderstood Mark.” When you can find a whole book about one piece of punctuation, you’ve got a collection worth browsing.  

I’ll survive, but I really don’t see what they’re getting out of getting rid of me.  

I don’t cause any problems. How could I? I haven’t set foot in the place for 10 years. When I borrow a book, I go to a website, click on an icon and my selection shows up on my phone. While I have no clue how this happens, I doubt that there is a human in Orange County who has to take part in the transaction. 

Nobody has to clean up after me in the restroom, my space doesn’t have to be air-conditioned, I never leave books on a table, nor do I reshelve a book in the wrong place. No staff member has to replace my chair, vacuum my cookie crumbs or trudge over to the desk tocheck me out. Nobody has to wait while I rummage through my wallet looking for a library card. I don’t put chewing gum in the card catalog, park illegally, leave fingerprints on the glossy picture books, raise my voice or dress in an unseemly or inappropriate manner.  

It would appear to me that the perfect customers for a library would be the people who never actually go to one—those who live elsewhere and check in via computer. Yet we are the ones being jettisoned. 

The library as I use it is a machine, a little more high-tech and highfalutin, but bottom line not that much different than those in the average company’s break room. The customer makes a selection, pushes a button and the peanuts are vended.  

Instead of inserting coins, I pay $125 a year to browse and push a button or two every other week or so. I’m having a hard time seeing how that $125 wouldn’t cover the costs of that, but let’s say it doesn’t. 

A Snickers used to be a quarter. When the price went up, vending machine companies didn’t post notices saying “we are going to quit selling you candy bars because the money you are putting  in the slot is no longer enough to cover costs.” 

They raised the price. Now, there’s an idea.  

I’d pay more if it was an option. Has anybody considered that bringing in more money might ease the problem of not having enough? At some point, people might quit buying, but why not keep selling at higher prices until then? 

I don’t get it. There’s probably some obscure book that would explain, but if I’m going to read up on it, I better hurry.