How to Survive Shopping (Ruleshorror)

13 Rules for Surviving Museums

It seems there's a museum for everything - art museums, science museums, history museums, family museums, crime museums - the possibilities are endless.

Fittingly, so are the dangers!

1. If the painting's eyes are following you, do not make eye contact.

2. Booping the T-Rex skeleton on the nose may have consequences for your nose.

3. Some museums stay open late, into the night. This is delightful for many reasons, not least of which that they've reckoned there's a safe night for you to be there. A safe night - not that all nights are safe!

4. Consider wisely which historic figures you really want to speak to facsimiles of.

5. Wax museums are kind of creepy. While I advocate, wholesale, not to stay at museums without the institution's consent, I recommend it even more vigorously in regards to wax museums. You...you won't like when you find out how the sculptures are made.

6. Lots of history museums used to be a house in Ye Olden Times. Don't follow the children's laughter or the sound of the rocking chair.

7. Sometimes there's a rock or bone or something you're allowed to touch. These are either certified curse-free or seriously loaded. Flip a coin, I s'pose?

8. Lots of Historically Relevant Papers are VERY CURSED. You don't want to be holding them too long. If a paper (or paper like thing) disintegrates in your hands, it's too late.

9. Something about the historic garment section really entices ghosts to flutter about. Given how much boning and arsenic and lead sometimes went into clothing, you might find yourself listening to a whole lineup of a dress's victims, from the cotton farmer to the dye-maker to the modiste to the debutante.

10. If there's a gravestone (or equivalent) on display and you can read the language it's in, stop and pay your respects. Museum ghosts get grumpy when ignored.

11. You might think a geology exhibit would be safe. You would be wrong - ever met a stone troll?

12. Lots of museums with relatively modern topics have "phones" with the recordings of eyewitnesses. If it becomes an actual conversation, follow the instructions precisely and then leave.

13. Take "no flash photography" signs very seriously - the no flash rule might very well be for your preservation as much as it is for that of the art.