Reference Question of the Day!

I feel like I need a dramatic intro with lots of trumpets or french horns when I announce these posts.  Hm.  In lieu of that, I will just overuse some caps and exclamation points.

REFERENCE QUESTION OF THE DAY!!!!!

The reference question of the day came to one of my co-workers during a regular Wednesday morning reference desk shift.

The back story: There was a local-ish news story on T.V. recently about a poor defenseless turtle who was golf-clubbed to death when she tried to climb into a sand trap to lay her eggs at a golf course.  See story here if you really, truly need to know more (*Warning* There is a picture of the injured animal):

 http://www.wbay.com/story/22562477/2013/06/11/1000-reward-after-turtle-beaten-on-golf-course

OK.  So a patron calls the reference desk and asks if the reference librarian had heard of the story.  After my co-worker confirmed that she had heard, the patron asked what happened to the turtle.

Approximation of the conversation that followed:

Librarian: I've got the news story up on my screen here and it says that unfortunately the turtle died.
Patron:  Yeah, I know that.  But what happened to the turtle?
Librarian: Uh, it says they took it to an animal hospital but that the turtle died from its injuries.
Patron:  Yes.  But what happened to the turtle?
Librarian: I'm not sure what you mean...
Patron:  Like, what did they do with the turtle after it died?
Librarian (after a moment's pause):  Well, the article says they took the turtle to the ______ Animal Shelter.  I'm not sure what happened to the turtle after that.  I can give you the phone number of the shelter if you'd like.

And my lovely coworker gave the number of the animal shelter to the patron.

Just one of those special questions that makes you go "Huh?!?!"  Were they hoping to make some soup?  Give the animal a burial?  Who knows!  Poor turtle :(

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