Lake Neuron

In one of the first two regular episodes of “Battlestar Galactica” last weekend, the formidable Commander Adama (Edward James Olmos) is bonding — just a little bit — with the President, his inexperienced but tenacious civilian superior, played by Mary McDonnell. They discover a shared love of reading. He hands her a favorite volume, and she says something about returning it.

“It’s a gift,” he replies, gruffly. (In connection with Edward James Olmos, forms of “gruff” are probably redundant.) “Never loan books.”

I’d loaned my copy of “America: The Book,” by the writers of “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” to a co-worker a month or two ago. Several weeks ago, she said something to the effect that maybe she ought to just return it, because it didn’t look like she was going to have a chance to finish it any time soon. Jon had mentioned something about the book on the show last week, which reminded me of something I wanted to re-read. That prompted me to ask my co-worker if she could, in fact, go ahead and return my copy. She brought it back the next day.

Or did she?

A day or two later, she told me the real story. My original copy of “America: The Book” had actually been ruined when my co-worker’s trunk leaked in the rain, and she’d gone out and bought a brand new copy to replace it.

I mentioned in my last post that Beth Martin had shown me a copy of a Bill Bryson book about Africa. She offered to loan it to me, but “Never loan books” and the image of a waterlogged Jon Stewart flashed into my head, and I declined.