Despite the severe weather warnings on Thursday, my intrepid colleague and I set off for the new Museum of Transport designed by Zaha Hadid, to head off any students who hadn’t seen the notice telling them that the visit was cancelled because of adverse weather. After huddling in the driving rain, we were the first to enter when the museum opened at 10:00, and were made very welcome by the lady handing out floorplans at the door. We greeted the first few bedraggled students, then I set off enthusiastically for the new and improved Victorian Street Reconstruction to see how it compared with the old one. It was very good, and when I spotted a sign for the Subway, I was over there like a shot. I was so excited that I didn’t notice the man in the Glasgow Museums uniform shouting “Excuse me!” until he came striding assertively into my line of vision.
“Oh”, I said, “sorry, I didn’t hear you I’m a bit er…”
The man wasn’t in the mood for beating about the bush.
“Excuse me, who ARE you?” he said, in the manner of someone who was about to make a citizen’s arrest after recognising a suspect from Crimewatch UK.
My mind went into overdrive. The last person to ask me “Excuse me, who are you?” was my mother, but she put the emphasis on the normal ‘you‘ whereas this geezer was putting the emphasis on ‘are‘. This implied I wasn’t who he thought I was purporting to be, but since I didn’t know who he thought I was, I wondered how I should best answer his question.
I weighed up whether I should just say my name, state my occupation, or adopt the more Rumpelstiltskin-esque strategy of saying “I’ll give you three guesses…” This would buy some time for me to grab a fossilised baguette from the French Café exhibit; I could use it as a weapon whilst running for the exit.
The man was getting impatient.
“Just WHAT do you think you’re doing here?” he said, in an even more puzzling development. I eyed up the fossilised baguette. The Crimewatch UK hypothesis was looking more likely by the minute. Fiona Bruce’s grave tones cut in to my silence: “The woman has thin curly hair, is slightly scruffy in appearance and may be wearing a hearing aid. Members of the public are advised to exercise caution when approaching her from behind.”
Suddenly, the museum attendant looked down at his watch. When he looked up again, he had undergone an instant personality change.
“Och,” he said apologetically, “I didn’t realise it’s after ten o’clock…we open at ten. I thought you were an intruder. We get some right strange people in here sometimes.”
I’m clearly one of them.
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