A police department announced
it was donating books
to a Little Library
after there had been some ‘thefts.’
The issue is…
It wasn’t a Little Library.
It was a Little FREE Library.
The entire idea behind
Little Free Libraries
is people take books
other people don’t want.
There can be no ‘theft’
involved.
Everything is freely given.
The police department
tried to explain their wording
by shoveling some sh*t
about people cleaning the Little Free Library out
to resell the used books.
The resale value of a used children’s book
is about 10 cents.
There’s not a booming market
for used books.
This made the police department look
foolish
as well as harsh.
Many people,
including myself,
wondered if they knew
what a theft was.
And if they didn’t know
what a theft was,
were they the people
we should trust
to apprehend thieves?
This was their area of ‘expertise’
and we are now questioning it.
If we care about
trust,
if we care about
being known
as experts,
we shouldn’t say
idiotic sh*t,
especially not on social media.
And if we give sh*t away
to random strangers,
we have no say on who takes that sh*t
or what they do with it
once they take it.