(43) The Flight From Reason

V
On the morning of April 14th 1989 I decided to take out from the Bedford library two books that I had taken out before: Science confronts the Paranormal by Kendrick Frazier
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=98770654&D=se2q&CRID=science%20confronts%20the%20paranormal%20by%20kendrick%20frazier
and The Flight from Reason by James Webb.

Both are sceptical views of the paranormal.

When the girl at the front desk ran my card through the computer a problem showed up and she informed me that I could not have any more books until I returned one that had been overdue since September 1988: The Flight from Reason by James Webb.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_(historian)

I laughed incredulously. "That’s the very book that I have just taken off your shelves!"

She was bewildered.
An examination showed that it was the same book and not a different copy. I had returned it seven months earlier and it had been taken out of the library six times in the interim, although never by me.

I had been into the library more than a hundred times in those seven months and had taken out dozens of books, but there had never been any computer reference to a problem with any being overdue.
Not, that is, until I attempted to take out The Flight from Reason.

I should perhaps make clear that presenting my card into her computer would not have given any indication of which books I was then attempting to take out.