In libraries, adult reference work is very different from services to children. I generally prefer the latter, because the clientele is cuter and more huggable. But I've discovered that grown-ups are just as likely as kids to provide me with some memorable, entertaining dialogue.
Here are a few of my favorites since I've begun working at my current library (very different from the one I chronicled in Day in the Life):
> From my gaggle of harmless but nevertheless creepy stalkers, mostly white, male senior citizens who wander over from the McDonalds next door after breakfast: "Where do you go to school? ... Oh, that's the bad girls school." Also, "What do you think of Britney Spears? You're about her age, right?"
> On an author whom the patron had seen interviewed on television: "I can't remember his name. He's from San Francisco and he's gay. He didn't look gay, though. He just looked like a regular person."
> When I presented a very proper woman in her 80s with yesterday's newspaper, which we didn't have and which I'd run down the street to purchase: "Oh my! Such service! I feel like Mrs. Clinton!"
