The Levy County, Florida, libraries are not what they used to be as the number of volunteers who’d normally tend to filing, restocking and reshelving has shrunk from 55 to a mere two. Don’t blame disinterest in the printed word, though. The cause is a county law requiring volunteers to undergo drug testing—even the 60- to 85-year-old retirees that were once the proud backbone of the county’s Dewey Decimal System. The seniors have nothing to hide. They just simply find the whole thing rude.

“A large part of the problem is how the test is administered,” explained county library director Bonnie Tollefson. “It is an affront to some people’s dignity.” Volunteers are expected to pee into a plastic cup within hearing distance of the county’s hired testers. For an age bracket known more for dealing in incontinence than controlled substances, slipping a doily under the cup won’t make it any less ridiculous.

“It’s not like we’re a high-risk group,” said one former volunteer, who also suggested tax money would be better spent on new library resources rather than testing “75-year-old grandmothers for marijuana.”

» Scott Saxon