Just when you think you've seen everything...

...someone walks through your library carrying a hula-hoop.

Pro tips for free:

Never lend your scissors out on the Friday afternoon before Valentine's Day.

We keep two pairs, and loan them to patrons in the central reading area as needed. However, one pair was out before I got to Ref (and I didn't know that). Then I loaned the other pair to another patron.

As I started doing my usual tasks, I discovered I needed one of the pairs. So I looked around the library for either pair to see if they were idle.

Both pairs are actively engaged in cutting out red hearts from construction paper.

Awwww....

This just in...

...even worse than being able to identify patrons in your vicinity by smell?

Being able to identify them by the hacking, phlegmy cough.

It's cold & flu season, people. Wash your hands!

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever wished you had a mirror on a long stick that you could use to peer over the balcony wall to see who's unwrapping the world's noisiest candy wrapper. Cause if you had it, you could positively identify the offender and remind them about the rules. But no, having no mirror on a long stick means that by the time you get up there, the candy will be in mouth and innocent cherubic facial expressions will be firmly installed.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had to explain to a patron that even though they clicked "Buy now" on Amazon for a particular ebook, they don't actually OWN the ebook if the gift card on the Amazon account has a balance of $0.00.

...if you've ever had a patron complain about a baby crying on another floor of the building.

"Well, it sounds like the baby is in the bathroom, so maybe it's being changed. I'm sure it will stop shortly."
"I'm a mother of five, and NONE of my babies EVER screamed like that during a changing!"

At this point, I very carefully did not say, 'As a mother of five, I'm surprised you have no tolerance for a crying baby. Surely you can relate to the parent, and can understand how useless it is for you to get pissy about a very natural part of being an infant?'

...if you've ever gotten excited about an email reference question because it actually took a little creative research to answer--you pull out multiple types of reference materials, trace the development of an idea, and document your findings in a detailed and informative email. And then, the next day, you find a four word reply. "thank you very much"

Ahh well, I guess we can't all be poets...

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had a patron come up to you to read an article about a pit bull attack.

That was the entire exchange.

You may be a reference librarian if...

...if you've ever had a "discussion" with a patron about the temperature.

"The cashier at the shop next door told me it had gotten up to -8 degrees!"

My internal monologue: There's no way it's that cold out. It was only supposed to get down into the single digits overnight, and the news this morning wasn't gushing about freakish coldness.

So, being a now-curious information professional, I clicked my handy link to the weather page.

"I don't know where the cashier got the number, but it's +9 degrees now. No, actually, that update is an hour old."

"Oh, maybe it got colder since then."

Internal monologue again: Yes, I'm sure that's it. The temperature dropped 17 degrees in 54 minutes, and the authority for that information is a cashier at a bakery and not the National Weather Service...

Either way, it's pretty danged chilly. Even in celsius.