A museum hijacking
19 April 2010
Saturday afternoon found me being forced into a tour of a small town museum. I didn’t mind going into the museum, I didn’t even mind perusing it. I did not, however, need one of the employees there to take it upon herself to enlighten me on what she perceived to be the wonders of the museum. For whatever reason, this very nice woman latched on to me while my husband wandered off with our 2-year-old daughter. So unfair.
The woman proceeded to walk around with me and show me the various gems the museum boasted. Like the room that the town grocer had sponsored, which featured things from their stores from the last five generations of ownership. Probably very interesting to someone—just not me. Or photos and memorabilia from the town’s high school. If it’s not my high school, I really don’t care. And even it is was my high school, my attention span would still be pretty short.
But at least those were old objects with an actual history. The hardest ones to behave respectfully interested in were the ones where she said something like, “Someone found this in their barn. We don’t really know what its history is, but it’s really old.”
Riveting.
Same with the old wedding dress that someone had found in a thrift shop and bought for a dollar. I’m looking at that thinking, “Yeah, it’s a pretty dress, but… Why is it here?”
The highlight, however, came at the end. Staring into a glass case, she said to me, “And this is a buffalo hairball.”
I thought I must not understand correctly and said, “It’s a what?”
“A buffalo hairball. They cough them up, and those stones are in the middle. Isn’t that interesting?”
I searched wildly for something to say. “Yeah, I… I thought only cats had hairballs.”
“No, lots of animals do. Even dogs.”
“Wow, that’s… That’s really something.”
Fortunately we were near the exit, and my husband had just returned. He said it was time to go, I thanked the woman for her time, and we escaped.
Short of faking early labor, I really had no idea how to get out of that situation. Ben had already stolen McKenna, who’s my normal excuse.
Have you ever been totally hijacked like that? Do you go through the effort of finding a respectful way to excuse yourself, or do you suck it up and allow 20 minutes of your time to get sucked away looking at weird old stuff with little to no interesting history?
Comments
Teavana is so little, it’s easy to have that happen in there! And oddly, inside their store, I always feel like much more of a tea drinker than I really am. A “Coffeevana” would be such a money pit for me…
Posted by Stephanie on 20 April 2010
Sounds like my experience with that Teavana, only worse. But hey—good fodder for a scene sometime! LOL.
Posted by Roseanna White on 20 April 2010