Shortly after starting work at the AMNH, I got a staff-wide email about the museum shop clearance sale that was going to happen in the basement of the museum exclusively for employees. EXCLUSIVELY for US.
After reading the email, I immediately noticed a palpable difference on the floor. People seemed to have a bounce in their step, a new-found joy for life, and smiled for no reason at all to themselves. I would also occasionally catch them glaring suspiciously at their coworkers, as if plotting revenge or remembering the occasion for a long-held grudge. At the time, I did not think twice about this, but then I went to the sale.
The whole bottom entrance of the museum was transformed into a veritable flea market. There were dozens upon dozens of tables just loaded with crap. The stuff that did not sell for one reason or another in the stores, whether it was because the item was related to an exhibition 3 years old, or because half of it was broken. There were cups, light-up pens, stuffed dragons, horse ornaments, huge stuffed polar bears, dinosaur themed Christmas carol CDs, science kits, shower curtains, kids’ books on space, books on how to grow plants, different types of dogs, mugs, magnets, lizard key chains, balls with monkeys in them, gigantic globes, just really anything and everything you could think of.
And then there were the employees frantically pawing their way through the stuff.
An innocent passerby may have thought we had rabies. The way we were pawing through the mounds of crap haphazardly piled onto the tables, it was hard to think that we had ever been introduced to civilization and the alphabet, or that we had moved beyond the Stone Age. And I am saying “we” here, because the minute I set foot into that market, I was transformed into a wild, crazed being who HAD TO HAVE EVERYTHING THERE WAS. THERE. THAT CUP WITH THE DOLPHINS. THOSE MARTINI GLASSES. THOSE MAGNETS. Belong to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
People were shoving both friend and foe out of their way to snatch at the goods that were everywhere, greedily stuffing everything they could lay their hands onto into pockets, bags, upturned shirts, or even into their mouths. There were security guards cowering in the corner as a sea of people stormed over them, other people bent over in half protecting their finds as others would try to grab them away. Full grown men sat weeping under tables. Women were batting each other away from steals with machetes.
At the time, I didn’t know why this was happening. I was just an uninformed participant. But now I fully understand. For the past year, the employees at this museum have been the ones sitting outside looking in. Daily, we would see millions of happy tourists with museum store gift bags overflowing leaving the building with gigantic grins plastered onto their faces, pleased with their T-Rex ice cube tray or their triceratops socks. These people could allow themselves the luxury of museum store prices because they were tourists and on vacation and some boy in Bulgaria was going to be the coolest kid in town with his new hat. While we, the employees, were left outside to wait until prices were brought down. For the whole year, we would go into the store, longingly eyeing the t-shirts and pencils, keeping a mental note of what was worth returning for and what wasn’t, memorizing the shape, color, and weight of the coveted object so that when the day of the clearance sale came, we would be able to sprint through the aisles grabbing objects off the table, not stopping to think twice about whether or not it was the item we really wanted. Because in this competition if you stopped for even a second to think about whether or not you had the right thing, it would be too late. Someone will have already wrestled it away from you at light speed.
This sale is tomorrow again. I am going fully prepared that friendly ties I have developed this past year may be severed over the glow in the dark snake I want. No regrets!
