Little Free Libraries are all the rage these days in cities large and small. Much like the "leave-a-penny, take-a-penny" trays at grocery stores, the ubiquitous and squat book abodes offer passersby the chance to leave books or take books freely.
Caroline Barnes of Portsmouth, VA, has one such Little Free Library outside her home. She apparently only has the latest hot page-turners, as local teenagers "stole" over 70 books one night recently.
There's the rub, though. It's a Little Free Library after all. You know, the whole "free" angle.
"We put this stamp in the books that says, 'Always a gift, never for sale'," Barnes told local news station WTKR.
But earlier this week her video doorbell caught the teenagers grabbing everything they could get their hands on.
As she told WTKR, "We heard them a little on the video say, 'We are going to sell these,' and and I thought, 'You are stinkers,'" she said.
Well, they might be stinkers, but they're literate entrepreneurial stinkers. Barnes showed the video to her local police, who broke the news to her that law enforcement can't do anything because--uhh, well---you can't "steal" if it's offered for "free."
Also, this being the Commonwealth of Virginia, this means some of the books "stolen" were also Bibles.
"We are hoping maybe they are using some of it for moral guidance because they sure need it," Barnes told the news station, seemingly still unaware how free things logically can't be stolen.
Unless when God said "Thou Shall Not Steal," there was some fine print we all missed about free books not being free.
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