Let's Go A Round

I kinda got into my first real fight with a patron yesterday.

This guy came in, and unfortunately I knew what he wanted before he even opened his mouth, however I let him ask. He came up and asked about two books we had for him, and then handed in a postcard. Well the postcard said that we would hold them until January 20th - now think about what yesterday's date was - Feb 7th. So I went back and pulled the ILL (interlibrary loan) slips he had filled out to get these books, and I told him that we sent them back on the 31st. He argued that he didn't even get the postcard until the 21st. OK - so I repeated that we didn't send the book back until the 31st. (And again, he was coming in on the 7th to ask about them)

He claimed he went to the Fort White branch on the 21st (Why? The books weren't there! The postcard has the name and address of the branch they're being held at), and we had already sent them back. I showed him the date on the slips and told him he was wrong. So then he started arguing that the date on the postcard was wrong. Um, no - we normally hold books for a week - which was the date on the card, but because it was an ILL we were nice and held it for 10 days longer than we should have. This went on for about 10 minutes, and his leaps in faulty logic were such that after one particularly confounding sentence I said "OK - wait, what?!"

Eventually Diane had to come out to break it up. She pulled me aside and said that she didn't come up because I had done anything wrong, it was just to get him to shut up and go away. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, until I went into the back and everyone was asking me about it - apparently we were making a lot of noise, and they thought I might reach across the counter and strangle him. Maybe next time. (And yes, I'm sure there will be a next time)