Just Another Day in Paradise

(Written to the accompaniment of screaming, crying children leaving story hour. What exactly do they do in there that makes the children so unhappy?)

Patron: "Sometime back I read an article about chickens in a Mother Earth News Magazine. Can you get it for me?"

Me: "Do you recall when you read it?"

Patron: "No, it's been awhile. But it was about chickens. Exotic breeds of chickens."

Me: "Let's see if I can find a listing for it on their website (which I do, find the date--Feb/Mar 2005--retrieve the issue from another floor of the library, and give it to waiting patron)

Patron: "That's it!" and goes off on his merry way.

Same patron, three minutes later: "It didn't have pictures so I don't need it. I sure thought it had pictures but it's been a long time since I looked at it. Here it is back."

No "thank you", no "I'm sorry you went to all that trouble", just a wasted effort on my part.

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Seen from a far: Mother looking up titles on OPAC as her 9 or 10 year old son approaches her with a baseball book, big grin on his face, saying "look what I found!" She snatches it from it, opens to a page, & thunders, "you can't have this! Go sit over there until I'm finished". Which is when she comes to me & asks for a particular author, saying "he's a Christian." Too bad she isn't.

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Related from the circulation desk:

A young man came in to get a library card. When asked for ID, he pulls out his card showing he is a recently registered sex offender with the state. Now that takes balls!