Introducing Another Imaginary Service We Don't Provide

If people walk up and speak with authority, I am inclined to believe that what they say has some weight, and that maybe I’m wrong. Just stride up to the desk and announce something crazy, like “yeah, I’m here to have my aura read,” and I will wonder if that’s something we’ve started doing and I must didn’t get the email.

So that’s what happened when the guy his finger out at me. A DVD rested ring-like near the tip of the finger. He told me that he needed it polished. I know as well as the next reference librarian that we don’t do that just as we don’t rebind books for people’s private collections, but his certainty made me less sure and I faltered.

“Ummm…I don’t think we do that…” I said in a voice that carried 50 jillion percent less authority than I would have liked.

“I was told,” he declaimed, his certainty undiminished, “that you could bring your DVDs in and they’d polish them for you if there were skips on it.”

“Were you told which library?”

“The library!” he said. Like we’re a giant, monolithic entity that spans worlds, like the Borg or the liberal media. He couldn’t believe that we didn’t do this, though eventually he did leave.