Rules, silly rules

My legacy of being a target for stupid cases continues.

We came off lockdown yesterday evening, so West and I decided to run book cart today to give people a chance to read while we did inventory. It's not a big deal that our book cart books are out because most of them ate doubles or cast-offs anyway. West also had the crazy idea to do the whole 100-man unit in one day. Now, these are guys who just came off lockdown, hungry for new reading material while the library is still closed. Book cart was busy and that is an understatement.

We started the book cart at 8:30 am and didn't finish until about 7 pm after the 6:30 shift change. It took a while to find someone to open the library for us to return the carts because the night shift isn't accustomed to the library workers being out on their sift. The lieutenant finally let us in.

As I was coming out, I pulled an envelope from under my clipboard with some poetry from a friend, grabbed my book, and headed out.

"Hold on a sec," called the lieutenant, "Lemme see that envelope."

After I handed him the envelope, he stated, "This doesn't have your name or number on it. It's contraband."

"Alright, you can have it," I conceded, "I don't mind."

"No, you follow me. You'll get confiscation papers and a case."

"Really? For an envelope? I do this every weekend."

"Not this one you don't."

When we reached his office, he filled out maybe half the paperwork before handing me off to the sergeant.

"What's that?" asked the sergeant, eying my book.

"A book. I read while I do book cart. Every weekend."

"Lemme see it."

I handed it over.

"No name or number. It's contraband. I'm confiscating this, too."

"Are you serious? I do the same thing every weekend without any trouble. The only difference is that I don't have to deal with this shift."

"Well, tonight you do," the sergeant sneered.

Now I have two bogus cases to deal with at the same time. Wonderful. What will they come up with next?