"Do you have books on fairies?"

Here’s a true story of mine that is slightly OT, but guaranteed to give you a chuckle…

A couple of years ago, I used to work in a big chain bookstore. Lord help us if we didn’t get plenty of insane customers everyday. One day, I was at the info desk helping customers find certain books. An attractive young lady around 17-19 years of age came up to the desk and asked, “Do you have books about fairies that I could look at?”

“Yes we do.” I said. I took her to the art book section and presented her with several “How to Draw Fairies” books.

“No, no!” She insisted. “Books with fairy pictures!” I brought her over to the sci-fi section where I showed her Brian Froud’s fairy books.

“No!” She said again. “Books with pictures of REAL fairies!”

For a moment I stood aback. “You mean photographs?”

“Yes!”

“Of real live fairies, flittering through the air?”

“Yes! I want a book with real pictures of real fairies!”

What was I going to say? I didn’t want to crush her spirits by saying that there was no book because fairies don’t exist. So to change the subject I asked, “Have you ever seen a fairy?”

“Oh yes! Lots of them!” She then dug into her purse and brought out a mini album and presented it to me. “I even took pictures of them! See, there’s Dewdrop, Honeymoon, Pinkiepie, and Weeplebell…” I nodded and gave murmurs of interest as she showed me her fairy album. Dear reader, what I saw was nothing but photographs of trees, rocks, and dirt. Each photograph was carefully shot to show something that just wasn’t there.

This girl was either schizophrenic or taking too much '___'.

“Well, to be honest,” I told her after the slideshow, “We don’t have any books with photos of fairies. But I’ll tell you what, why don’t you get in contact with a publisher and get your photos printed in a book! I’m sure that it would be a big hit!”

The girl looked thoughtful for a moment and said, “Maybe you’re right. Do you know who I could contact?”

“Oh sure!” We went back to the info desk and I gave her a brochure to the local vanity press. She said her good-byes and skipped out of the store.

Every time I see something about fairies I’m reminded of that crazy girl. And now I’m starting to wonder… Was she crazy or could she see something real that everyone including me could not? I wonder…

Hi Cowboy Clint,

Hope I'm not derailing your thread, but I've worked in libraries for over 12 years, and we get some interesting patrons along the lines of your fairy lady. I once had a gentlemen ask me, with a completely serious face, where he could find the federal regulation that deals with the government broadcasting radio signals into his head. After I pondered that for a second I just showed him the Code of Federal Regulations section on radio transmissions, he photocopied some pages, and left as quietly as he came.