Reference Desk Fun

Today a patron came up to the desk with a memoir of a girl during the holocaust and asked if the book was short stories or a novel. I looked at the book and told her it was a memoir, neither a short stories nor a novel.
She said - but there are short sections in the book.
I said - Yes, it looks like it there are short essays or vignettes about her life during the holocaust in this book
- But are they short stories?
- No, short stories are fiction and this is non-fiction
- Short stories are sometimes non-fiction
- Actually, short stories are by definition fiction
- I don't agree with you, are these short stories?
- No, it is a memoir, which is written in chapter length vignettes
- Short stories can be non-fiction, you're wrong
- No, short stories are fiction. Essays and such can be non-fiction
- I don't agree, you're wrong (sneer)
- Okay, well at the library we do not classify short stories as non-fiction. If it is a short story, we put it in the short story fiction section.
- You're wrong, short stories can be either fiction or non-fiction

What can you do? I gave her a shrug and a smile and sent her on her way with her book.

30 minutes later the patron came back asking where she could get a definition of a short story. I pull up definitions for her, read them all out, and she says, "so the word fiction is in all the definitions?"
- Yes, it is.
- Oh.