A funny thing happened at the library today...

The great thing about working at a public library is that I never ceased to be amazed by the questions that I get asked at the reference desk. Some border on the insane, while some are so amazingly complex and obscure that I can never help but wonder what prompted such a question. Today, however, I had a question that would fall into the latter category.

Today at the reference desk I had probably the funniest interaction with a patron I have ever had. So a man comes up to the reference desk and very nicely asks me where the books that have photographs of ancient Greece are. As I was in "librarian mode" I instantly started the usual reference inquiry. My first question: was he interested in the history, art, architecture or just wanted quality photos of the ruins of Greece.

He answered no, he was more interested in photographs of Hercules.

I then started in on the question: was he looking for photographs of statues, paintings, pots... ?

Apparently by this point he was getting a little exasperated with me because he said to me: "look, I just want a photograph of the living guy, not some statue or painting, I would even take a photograph of Zeus if you had it."

Hmmm... Really? At this point I was still too much in shock to believe that he had really wanted an actual photograph of the body of Zeus or Hercules. It really did take all of my self control to tell him, "well I want a picture of Jesus, but it just isn't going to happen". Instead I smiled my best "Oh God, how stupid can you possibly be" smile and very politely informed him that photography wasn't invented during the time of Hercules and Zeus was a Greek God, not a physical being. Though he was known to manifest himself into various forms to seduce young maidens.

From the expression on his face, I don't think he quite believed me. But I told him if he just wanted pictures of muscular men I had some body building books that would probably fit just as well.