I Just Wanted a Damn Library Card

While I did actually get the library card, it came with some drama and a little confrontational scene with a mean bus driver replete with sharp and witty dialogue that took place squarely in my mind.

It was a gloomy day that Thursday a few weeks ago. I've had to get some distance from it before writing about it, as the pain of the encounter with the bus driver still sears through my heart like a burnt spear that just went through the spear sharpener. I did my research, poring over Web site after Web site until I finally(!) came across the information I needed to get a card: proof of Brisbane address, which I have thanks to AT&T and a photo ID that contains a signature on it.

I took a look at the bus schedule because that's just the type of public transportation you take in Brisbane if you don't have a car, because the train is just kinda lame. One would think negotiating a bus schedule online is an easy thing. Nope. After having to download and read three to four PDF files, I managed to find the right route. After getting off the bus one stop too far at New Farm Park, and after managing to avoid looking at the ten-inch spiders that hung in their Webs in trees, I came upon the New Farm Library. And I was excited.

The last library I'd been in was NYU's Bobst monster. I spent just about every day of my first semester at New School there, including an all-nighter because of Hegel, and I pretty much never went back. So it was no surprise that New Farm was exciting, even though it was 11 stories shorter than Bobst.

The man who helped me was nice enough, though he looked at my sort of crossly when he confirmed I would have to be in Brisbane for three months. After that, he clicked a few things; typed in the phone number I had to go crawling around in my head for because Australian phone numbers still kind of make me freeze -- even my own; and slid a card through a little machine thing, and bam! The library card, which unfortunately is thicker and much more substantial than a Queensland driver's license (Meredith will tell you the same thing), was now mine and I could borrow up to 20 items at will.

I looked around for a while, but didn't find anything that jumped out. That was okay, because I had already decided to go to the bigger library downtown, which I think is what they call the CBD (Central Business District). My excitement grew and I finally left. And of course I went to the exact same bus stop I had gotten off at, thinking that it would take me onto the library I wanted to visit.

Well, what a dumbass I was that day a few weeks ago.

Listening to Ramona Koval's "Book Show" on ABC National Radio, I sat on the bench, waiting, the excitement brewing. The bus approached and at the last minute, I raised my hand, because it was clear he'd have kept going despite the fact I was the only one at the stop, standing at the pole, practically hugging it. I showed him the ticket I bought that was good till the end of the day, and took my seat not quite at the back. Two other women were there with me and got off one by one, leaving me alone with cranky pants.

At the next stop, he opened the doors, and we sat there even though no one got on. With Ramona still talking in my ear, I caught sight of the driver looking at me in his rear-view mirror.

I do not like to get in trouble. But I also sometimes say things when my censor isn't looking that could get me there, as I walk away. He said something to me in a gruff tone, exasperated with what he obviously believed to be my stupidity. "What the hell's his problem?" I asked the space in my brain as I walked up the aisle to stand at his side.

He resumed talking to me, his clipboard at rest on his heart-attack belly, wondering why I was on the bus still.

"Well, I want to go downtown," I said, remembering "downtown" is not a suitable word here. "I want to go to the city. And I have this till the end of the day."

"I'm going blahblahblahblahblah..." he continued for probably another two minutes, gruffly, talking nonsense about his route, that route. I'm still not quite sure what he was going on about. Oh, and finally? "You're lucky I'm not terminating my route here."

I'm lucky? Did you just rescue me from a pit of snakes before I got bitten? Did you push my body out of the way of a speeding train? A bullet? Lucky? I stood there, half trying to come up with something to say, half trying to understand why it seemed to have become a big deal.

Twenty minutes later, still with Ramona's show going, we finally left after taking on another rider. I made it to the library. I happened to spot a book compiled by Ramona Koval and the printed interviews she'd done over the course of a few years on her show.