"How do you say Elvis in Spanish?"
El Vez?
A tenderhearted woman wanted to know how long skunks nursed, because there was a litter of them in a nest underneath her cottage. “They're right underneath the floorboards and I can hear them mewling. My entire place needs to be fumigated, but I called Animal Control and they said that if they removed them they would have to euthanize them. I can hold out, but I need to know when the end is in sight.”
I told her 8-10 weeks before they’re weaned, and then the juveniles tended to hang around for a few more weeks after that, accompanying their mother on hunting forays before they strike out on their own. Fun fact I learned from this reference question: skunks stamp their feet to express displeasure and warn off unwelcome suitors. I’ve noticed that Spoon the dog stamps her feet when we’re not forthcoming with her dinner or when she wants us to share something we’re eating. Southern Belles in a lot of the old Moonlight and Magnolia romances I used to read tended to stamp their dainty feet, usually to express pique.
I had to quiet some rowdy Germans by the internet terminals.
An elderly African American woman laid her hands on my forehead and blessed me after I found a bunch of sacred texts for her.
The poem Timothy McVeigh read before his execution. Unrepentant to the end!
A colleague talking a hysterical older woman down from a ledge (metaphorically speaking). Her time had run out while she was typing a cover letter and she didn’t know how to save it, so she lost all of her work. She was practically tearing her hair out and rending her clothes. He calmed her down and helped her type her letter. Through jagged breaths and tear hiccoughs she dictated her letter. I was so touched by his kindness and patience. There are so many technologically intimidated, emotionally fragile people at the library who were left in the dust by the Rise of the Machines. I really feel for these people trying to get their lives together and do the right thing despite all of the obstacles they must overcome. Even a city janitorial job must be applied for over the internet now.
A man who looked like an addict wanting to know how to spell the word addict.
Cold Turkey
A man, shaking and sweating and covered in goosebumps, begged “I’m really sick (you mean dopesick). Would you please call my friend (you mean dealer) for me? I was supposed to meet him here but somehow I missed him. Please, I don’t have any money.” He was so pitiful that I made the phone call for him. “I’ll be back here in this chair.” I watched him walk over and collapse and start rocking back and forth.
A well groomed man wearing an ascot handed me a book he had pinched between his forefinger and thumb. Wrinkling his nose, he informed me, “This book smells FOETID.” He was right.
Man with a crude swastika tattoo on his neck. “I need to find a job.” Consider a turtleneck.
I have been asked to model for an entrepreneurial library page’s hip hop urban streetwear line he runs on the side. Not that I am not extremely flattered, but as we all know, the brothers are notoriously lax on standards of booty size, and this is clear indication that I need to drop a few. I've definitely let myself go lately. I tried to justify it to myself that it's part of my survival tactic working with the lonely, lonely and often alarmingly horny public to be purposefully unattractive while on the job, but I better watch myself before I end up looking like 
We were milling about the kitchen this morning when we heard a man screaming in fury. We ran to the back of the house, toward the direction of the sound, and were treated to a 10 minute screaming tirade performed by one of our neighbors whose back yard abuts ours. The target of his rage is another neighbor whom we’ve never been able/never particularly wanted to identify. She is quite an uninhibited lady, in that she’s very vocal, and likes to turn what should be a most intimate act into a public performance for the neighborhood. Judging by the sounds, she's a real wildcat in the sack. She’s especially fond of nooners, as well as wake-ups, afternoon delights and elevenses, and on nice days like today she likes to have her windows open. Apparently, years of frustration and annoyance over this neighbor’s lack of decorum and discretion caused our neighbor to snap.
I finally watched the 
A French couple, tourists, somehow wandered into the Deaf Services area of the library. In thickly accented English, they asked some patrons milling about for directions to a museum. The French couple had no idea that everyone they were talking to was deaf, and the deaf people, even though they were proficient lip readers, could not make sense of what the couple was saying because of their accent. The deaf patrons, after staring intently at the couples’ lips, began using sign language. Since people who don’t speak each other’s language often resort to gesticulation, the French couple still didn’t realize why they weren’t being understood. Finally the deaf services librarian escorted the baffled tourists out to the reference desk.
The other day I helped my colleague teach a class for the public on our magazines and newspapers databases. A perky woman sitting in the back row raised her hand. She was wearing a brightly colored hat slightly askew a la Blossom. 
Because items checked out on juvenile cards do not accrue fines, people will often try to circumvent the system by using their child's card to check out their own material, especially in the case with videos, a pricey $1.00 per late day. This problem could be eliminated if we would limit juvenile cards to to juvenile items, but sometimes children legitimately want to check out material classified as adult, like the little ten year old girl who wanted a book on making cupcakes. The circulation staff has the right to challenge parents checking out adult items on their children's card, and this can lead to some amusing conversations at the circulation desk.
On the dogs' and my walk this morning I noticed no less than 6 homeless men unconscious on the street. One had passed out on the sidewalk while pushing his grocery cart, which had tumped over, spilling the contents to the curb. When I walked by, two grimfaced cops were standing over him. They looked extremely reluctant to begin cleaning up the mess.
A woman with a thick Russian accent called for help writing a reward poster. She had been in a grocery store bathroom earlier that day and removed her ring to wash her hands. She placed it next to the sink but then forget it and left, and when she returned a few moments later, the ring was gone. She wanted to know what she should write on the poster, and what kind of reward should be offered. She was distraught and weeping throughout the entire phone call, and toward the end she confided that the piece, a ring of amber and intricate gold workmanship, was her engagement ring, and was priceless to her. She sobbed that she didn’t know how she was going to confess her mistake to her husband.
