"Thank you very much, Bess."

Fun patron interactions last week!

A lady handed me her license with a picture she had meticulously pasted on the front.  "I know this makes me vain, but it's such a better picture than the one the DMV took."

I hesitated before voicing my doubts that she could actually get by with this if she happened to be in a more serious crunch, like getting pulled over.  I highly doubt the cop will chuckle and ask her if she knows her library pin number in lieu of an altered license.  

If a cop does do this, however, it would make my library heart very happy.

That same day I helped an elderly couple pick out a refrigerator on the library's handy dandy Consumer Reports database...Well I helped them narrow it down to two.  

At the beginning of the interaction the patrons seemed incredibly sure that they wanted an ice maker in the door and didn't really care about anything else.  20 minutes later they were arguing about whether they wanted the freezer below or to the side.  The husband's argument was infallible - he thought the door should be on the side because he didn't want to bend over every time he wanted some ice cream.  

After spending over thirty minutes with this couple, they seemed like they were finally ready to go look at the two lucky refrigerators.  But then, just as they were leaving, they turned back around and asked to see the physical copies of Consumer Reports just in case there was anything the database missed.  No matter how much I tried to convince them that the database not only had everything, it also had everything related to refrigerators all in one spot, they still insisted on looking at the magazines.  Over an hour later, as I watched them walk out the door, I couldn't help myself and asked if they had changed their minds.  The gentleman responded with a curt, "No, ma'am, but thank you for your help."  

Which totally translates to first-story freezer.

The best patron interaction of the week happened yesterday after helping a lady look up a book.

She looked right at me with a megawatt smile and said, 

"Thank you very much, Bess."

To which I responded, "Pardon me, did you just call me Bess?"

Her smile seemed to grow even larger, perhaps bordering on crazed.  

"Well that's your name isn't it?" she said with a snarl, spit flying everywhere.  

With that, she grabbed her book and stormed off.