Des Moines resident Mark Hewitt successfully executed a tense drop-off Wednesday morning, slipping a seven-month overdue copy of The Pelican Brief onto a shelf in the young adult fantasy section. Hewitt reportedly believed the mere physical presence of the book inside the building would automatically clear his account of a $1.40 late fee.
Witnesses confirmed the 34-year-old entered the Franklin Avenue Library wearing sunglasses and a low-pulled baseball cap, deliberately bypassing the automated return chute in the lobby. Security footage showed Hewitt holding the battered paperback tight against his ribs and scanning the aisles for wandering staff members before abandoning the John Grisham thriller between two volumes of The Hunger Games.
Following the drop, Hewitt immediately walked briskly toward the exit, staring intently at his shoes to avoid making eye contact with the circulation desk. Sources close to the man confirmed he had spent the last eight months paralyzed by the mounting ten-cent daily penalty, ultimately deciding that handing the book directly to a human being would result in an unbearable public scolding.
We rely on a computerized barcode scanner, meaning that quietly wedging a dog-eared thriller behind a decorative fern does not actually wipe your ledger clean.
At press time, Hewitt was sitting in his idling Honda Civic in the parking lot, aggressively refreshing the library’s mobile app to see if his balance had zeroed out.