Friday, May 16, 2008

The Museum: Part 1

Simon had went to the museum with his family and after an hour he found himself waiting for the free tour to begin. He already looked at all the exhibits twice and was ready to leave but his sister was enthralled with the place. He had already been admonished to "calm down and enjoy the exhibits" and to "appreciate the money spent coming here". The thing about it was he did not want to be here. He had wanted to go to the ball game with his friend Henry but he was here instead. It was not fair! His sister always got to pick what they did. He managed to conveniently overlook the baseball game he had attended Wednesday night. He also neglected to recall that his sister had not relished the idea of attending that baseball game but had been drug along anyway. In fact, if he was being honest he would be forced to admit that his parents rotating schedule was very fair. Every member of the Ronsed family had a chance to dictate a family event in an alternating pattern, even his mom and dad picked events where they dragged the family along. Simon just happened to not like anything his sister picked. Of course knowing this, way in the back of his mind, did nothing to stem the flow of his negativity. So his mother was going on the guided tour with him to give his sister, Julie, a chance to enjoy herself. His father would go with Julie because he also loved this museum and could be entertained for hours within it's walls.

Simon and his mother stood in the midst of a gathering crowd that was restlessly waiting for the guide. Simon watched as people looked at their watches every few seconds as if they had a lot of appointments that day or somewhere else to be. He did not care for watches and the dislike translated to careless treatment of them. After the third watch was mysteriously shattered his family stopped buying him new ones. Simon's theory was if everyone else had one then he did not need one since he could just ask someone else what time it was. The logic in that pleased him as it went right along with the familiar refrain "You don't need that just because 'everyone' else has it." He heard that from his parents whenever he told them what toy he simply had to have. He had once said "Just because everyone else cares about time does not mean I need to care about time." He had gotten in trouble for a while over that one but he figured the little bit of trouble was worth it because he had turned their logic against them. Now his parents simply said no when he asked or begged for something new and left the peer evaluation part out of it. They may train him in the art of proper manners but he could also train them out of the use of stupid cliches.

As he began to wonder about where the tour guide was, the tour guide made his appearance. Which almost went unnoticed because he was maybe a little under 4 feet tall. Simon wondered what the proper term was, he had hear dwarf and midget but were they acceptable? If he asked this man would he be insulting him? Did this guy just want to be treated as if height was not an issue? Simon was fascinated for the first time since he walked into the museum. He was brimming with questions and now felt the urge to stay here for a little while longer.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. May I have your attention?" People turned to look at the little man in the front of them. "My name is Jeff and I will be your tour guide today. Just to get this out of the way some of you may have noticed I am not exactly average height. There are many terms used to describe my resultant stature such as midget, little guy, dwarf or 'little person'. I prefer Jeff. However if you are describing me later please use the term 'little person' as 'little guy' implies I am a toddler running between your legs. Some of you look like you want to laugh at that last sentence; which is a good thing as I consider myself to be fairly funny and I am actually making a joke. If you are the type of person who likes to 'put themselves in the other person's shoes' then realize that my personal view is that you are all simply freakishly gigantic. Now that we got the awkward part out of the way let's start the tour! Follow me into the Red Bull sponsored wing of modern art. The Red Bull part is a joke which aims at the silliness of the constantly changing corporate sponsors of sports stadiums and music venues. Try to keep up with me people! I move fast and talk faster!" Everyone was smiling as they followed Jeff into the first exhibit.

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