Librarians love to see you take pride in your borrowed books by branding your name in them. Also, those witty little comments and drawings really improve the reading experience. And if you're using the book to study? All of that underlining and highlighting will be super helpful to whoever reads the book after you. They're bound to find the same passages useful, aren't they? Really, you're providing a service. Keep doing it.
2. Take it in the tub with you.
We all like to unwind after a long, hard day with a hot bath and a good book. Why worry about getting your library book sudsy? It's not like anybody's going to notice that all of the pages have dried looking like someone crumpled them up into a ball and then smoothed them out again all while they were still attached to the spine. Borrowed books get a lot of wear and tear, right? It's not like you can't still read it.
3. Give it to your dog as a chew toy.
Librarians get it; new chew toys are a hard-to-justify expense these days. Plus they're annoyingly squeaky. Never fear - your dog can have oodles of fun chewing the corners of a library book! And if anybody gets all huffy when you turn it in with tiny holes in all four corners? Just be like, "Duuuude. Only the cover is chewed. The cover's the least important part!" They'll be so impressed with your logic, they'll totally waive those pesky replacement fees. Probably.
4. Don't bother with a bookmark.
Who uses bookmarks anymore? Lame! It's so much easier to dog-ear/fold the entire right-hand flap/fold the whole page in half. Or you could just like, circle the page number in pen. Other people can use your stopping points as theirs, too. Plus also? You should definitely lick your finger every time you turn a page. Those little wrinkly perfect circles your slobbery digits leave behind? Just prove that it's worth it to finish the book. If one person bothered to read it all the way through, then everyone should, right?
5. Use them to store your loose photos, opened mail, receipts, and notes you and your friend passed back-and-forth during Social Studies.
Books are the perfect place to stash all those loose papers that you just don't know what to do with right at that moment. You probably won't completely forget that you put them there and then return all of those personal things to the library along with your book.
And the librarians probably won't find all of those things and then be privy to that photo someone took of you while you were dressed up like a chicken and getting bombed out of your mind (Please say that was Halloween. Even though no one else in the picture seems to be in costume. Please?) or that note you were writing with your friend where you talk about how Amber is such a slut because she hooked up with Casey at that party and someone should totally kick her ass.
And probably no one would think to take those amusing, forgotten things and post them up somewhere like, say, FOUND, for all to see. Probably they would just put them in Lost and Found box. You're totally golden! Phew.
