(Due to a history of items being stolen from our library, all DVDs are kept in locked cases which are then unlocked upon checkout, and all blu-ray discs are kept under the front desk and must be inserted into their correct cases by a librarian upon checkout. A patron approaches me, accompanied by two young children, and hands me a blu-ray case.)
Patron: “Hi, I borrowed this last time, but my husband said that when he went to play it, it had the wrong disc inside.”
(I glance at the front and see that it is a popular, G-rated kids’ movie. I look inside and see that there is no title on the disc itself, but it shows a very close-up image of what appears to be an elephant’s behind — nothing graphic, though.)
Me: “Oh, no! Sorry about that. There must have been a mix-up somewhere along the line. I’ll just look up the code of the disc.”
(All items have a code, which is pasted onto both the disc and its cases, making it easy to match them up. I search the code, and my eyes widen in horror as I see the search result.)
Me: “This… is not a children’s film… I’m so sorry.”
Patron: *cheerfully* “Oh, no, that’s all fine. Don’t worry; we’d already seen the movie anyway and we were re-borrowing it. Sorry that you have to spend time chasing that up now.”
Me: “Yeah, no worries. I’ll, um, I’ll take care of it.”
(The patron leaves.)
Coworker: *seeing my frozen mask of simultaneous panic and relief* “What’s up?”
Me: “I can’t believe that just happened.”
(It turned out that whoever had taken the blu-ray disc from behind the counter had grabbed the wrong one. Instead of going home with a light-hearted kids’ film, this family had been given the MA15+ rated movie “Grimsby” by Sacha Baron Cohen. Those familiar with Borat or anything else by Sacha Baron Cohen can imagine my horror at the thought of how close those little kids had come to seeing that which can never be unseen.)
