Current Events: 50 Shades

My coworker and I had just clocked out. I drowsily accepted her offer for a ride, and we headed for the downtown library.

"Oh, great!" she said in the car. "I can look for a couple books I've really been wanting to read."

I instantly felt reenergized. Book talk time!

"What's the book called?" I asked.

"Well I've read the first book in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey. The next ones are called Fifty Shades Darker, and Fifty Shades Freed. Some people might consider them porn, because they're sexually explicit."

Smelling a censorship issue, I eagerly listened.

"My mom actually signed a petition on Facebook, promising to be a woman who doesn't read this book."

The first title rang a bell. Perhaps I'd ignored a headline or seen the book at a book store.

"Well thank God we're going to the library!" I said a bit too excitedly.

"My friend tried to check it out from her library but was told it would be four to six weeks before she could read it."

Ah, holds. I'd had success with them in college--you put a hold on a book you want, and the loser who keeps rechecking out the same book is forced to return it.

But who wants to wait over a month for even a hot title? I was itching to see what the wait was at the downtown library in Chattanooga.

We sat at the catalogue computers and typed in, "Fifty Shades of Grey."

Eleven copies; all checked out.

We typed in Fifty Shades Darker. All four copies checked out. And for Fifty Shades Freed, all five gone.

My friend looked bored and for a moment, I felt like I'd wasted their time.

"They said you can request for the library to get more copies. That's how they know how serious people are about getting the book."

"Let's do it!" I may have fist-pumped.

My friend left me to go home and water her garden, but I had a passion to feed.

I put myself on the waiting list for the second and third books; I was eighth and fifteenth respectively. Then I civically I filled a petition for the library to get more copies of the second and third titles.

Since my coworker was already reading the first book, I hadn't put myself on the waiting list of Fifty Shades of Grey.

At home I logged into my library account and put myself on the list, and now I'm the fifty-second person in line for Fifty Shades of Gray at the Chattanooga library.

Why would I even bother to be on that list? Will I even care about the book four years from now?

Maybe not, but everyone loves a controversy even more than reading explicit, unmasterful fiction.