The harrowing, true-life tale of how I cheated death in the public library

You've got to understand - once you've stood as close to the edge as I have, you get addicted to danger. Without it, you feel sort of dead inside.

And when I found out I was the only middle-aged woman on earth that had read neither Eat, Pray, Love nor The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - hadn't even seen the movies - well, I had to do something. My reputation was on the line.

So I squared my shoulders and marched up to the doors, braced myself and threw them open: The Iowa City Public Library.

Less than 24 hours earlier, the library board had unanimously voted to ban guns from the premises. Their excuse: It would make patrons uncomfortable if citizens like me wandered, strapped, through the stacks.

You almost have to feel sorry for them, their naive little noses in books. Sure, in stories someone always rushes in to save such innocents. But I live in the real world, where danger lurks around every corner - just like that kid I met while he was patrolling a backyard cookout last summer.

He was armed to the teeth with a rubber dagger, plastic grenades and a whole arsenal of deceptively toylike firearms.

“What are you looking for,” I asked him.

“Snipers,” he said.

“Are there a lot of snipers in Marion?”

His grave expression stopped my teasing. “It only takes one,” he said.

It. Only. Takes. One. Have truer words ever been spoken? And without my Colt Anaconda strapped to my thigh, I was practically helpless. How was I supposed to defend myself? With those little golf pencils they keep over by the catalog?

Still, I couldn't wait around for state legislators to pass a bill, introduced last week, to keep local librarians from restricting my God- and Constitution-given right to carry a gun - wherever, whenever I choose.

Like the county courthouse, which only has the flimsy security provided by sheriffs' deputies with all their fancy training and radio equipment and backup. Or like City Hall, where you never know when you'll be challenged to a duel.

Anyway, people listen more closely to your complaints about potholes and such when they're staring down a barrel - even if it is just your snub-nose .38. Just ask Clay Duke how holding a Panama City, Fla. school board at gunpoint worked out for him last month. But I digress.

Where was I? Right - the library. Well, the rest of that story's not all that exciting. I found my books, checked them out and headed home. Turns out I wasn't in any danger after all.

This time, anyway.

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net