If you lived in San Francisco, you could use you mad writing skills to get out of a library fine. The city's library system recently allowed borrowers with overdue books to bring them back without paying fines - which max out at $5 per book - with the caveat that they had to tell the library why they were tardy.
- A group of second-graders said they were too busy rescuing marine mammals.
- One woman said she just couldn't part with a beautiful early 20th century book with good-feeling paper and plate illustrations. It looked so posh on her shelf.
- Another blamed his sister. After they had a falling out, she "accidentally" left a copy of the movie Babe that she had checked out in his name, tucked into his stack of DVDs.
Whatever the reason, the Library saw a record 29,228 items returned - compared to 5,000 returned books the last time they waived fines in 2001.
That's $55,165 in fines that were excused.
What would your excuse be?
