A Revolutionary New Reference Technique

Floyd overhead me referring to him a rodent and has taken severe exception with me about it. Apparently raccoons do not belong to the Fraternal Order of Rodents. So much for funning around with "The Roaming Rodent" sobriquet.

When checking out Floyd's assertion, I was amused to discover that on Yahoo Answers, you get to control reality by voting for the answer you like best. If the true answer doesn't rock, well hey--pick one that does! The winning answer to "Are raccoons rodents?" was "If they are in your house, then yes."

Suppose we did that on Reference Desk!

"Oh, you don't like the forms you'll have to fill out to get your Stimulus Payment this year? How about this--jot your address down on the back of a cocktail napkin and drop it in a mailbox!"

'Why, yes, there ARE federal grants to start your own business! Tons of them! And once you get it started, there are more grants to pay for your employees and your bookkeeping and a really big car for you to ride around in! Now you know how Bill Gates did it."

"You want to know if you're related to Princess Diana? Okay, just give me a second to pull up your personal genealogy back to 1610--it's right here on the Internet. Now, how do you spell your last name? Yep, you sure are related to Princess Diana! Also to Buckminster Fuller, Happy Rockefeller, and The Fabulous Moolah! Aren't you something!"

It's a revolutionary new reference method--give people whatever they want. Let's call it the Zingerman Technique, after the people who taught us "We don't live on a planet called 'Fair. ' " They don't live on a planet called "Reality" either, so that shoe oughta fit.