It just doesn't pay to put on the Homer Simpson t-shirt.
I had a book that was a couple of days overdue at the library. In a case like that, I normally wait until I have to make a trip into town; the small fine is cheaper than the cost of gasoline to make a special trip. So, today it was time to go grocery shopping, and I grabbed the book on the way out the door. It was only a little farther out of the way to go to the library and then double back to the store.
Well, I had a stack of books by the computer, and I had moved the overdue book to the top of the stack. I got to the library, pulled the printed-out slip out (I use them as bookmarks) and put the book into the night depository, since the library didn't open for another half-hour. It was only as the book left my hand that I realized I had grabbed the wrong book! I had just returned the book I was reading, William Gibson's Spook Country, which I had just gotten on Saturday. Sure enough, when I checked the slip, there it was. I swore and barely resisted the impulse to thwack myself on the forehead. Meanwhile, the book that was overdue was still sitting in my computer chair at home, and if I want to read Spook Country, I'll have to go through the whole rigmarole of putting a hold on it and waiting for several more weeks to get it again.
D'oh!
