Comments heard from visitors
A boy was examining the specimens in the shop. He came to my prize carved Buddha from Burma and said “Oh look, the skeleton of a princess!”
A mother rushed in to buy an Allosaurus to replace one she had bought earlier in the week for her little boy. The boy’s sister had buried the first one in the sand on the beach to fossilise it.
A young lad asked his mother if she liked dinosaurs. When she said yes, he gave her the large dinosaur he had been wanting. “Here you are,” he said “you can buy these”.
A young boy decided his newly purchased pteranodon needed a name. His parents were slightly aghast as he marched out on to the street shouting “come on Tranny!”
A young girl went round the museum singing Old McDonald with special emphasis on the verse where he had a dinosaur on the farm (together with appropriate sounds).
A very young lad walked into the shop with a beam on his face and announced that he was coming on the fossil hunt. As he came into the shop he caught sight of the fossils for sale and his face dropped. “Oh no,” he groaned, “Look at all those fossils. There can’t possible be any left on the beach for us to find.”
A dad answering the question on the quiz about when complex life began suggested “after marriage was invented.”
Woman looking at a fossil fish: “Look at that ugly old fish.” Husband responding quick as a flash: “That’s not a fish, it’s a mirror!”
A young girl was very excited about the Plesiosaur model which she thought was a water horse.
A young boy came out in floods of tears because he had not realised that the dinosaurs had become extinct.
A young lad was asked if he would like a fossil. “No thanks,” he replied “I’ve got grandad.”
A young lad looked in horror at a photo of our hominid skulls and wanted to know, “have they been eaten?”
A young child was trying to persuade a parent to buy her a present and suggested “ do you think we should give a dinosaur a home?”
I was telling a young boy that I came from Chesterfield (which he mistook for Chester). “Oh yes, we’ve just been doing about Chester in history,” he said. Then he looked suspiciously at me and said, “were the Romans still there when you were there?”
From a slightly confused young lad “look - there’s the giant amethyst that hit the Earth and killed all the dinosaurs!”
A young palaeontologist told us he had been studying dinosaurs all his life. When asked how old he was he reported he was 8 years old.
A lady looked at her feet in disgust after she tripped on the step and muttered “I’ve obviously not evolved as much as I thought”.
Lady to Jenny: “are you Lisa who found all the ammonites?” (I think she mistook Lias).
On a fossil hunting walk I was explaining what the beach was like “when I was a young lad....” We walked a bit further before one member of the party started talking about “when I was a young lad....” He was 7 years old.
Four year old boy looking at the fossils said “Mum, can I get an ancient toy?”
A toddler spotted my prize dinosaur egg. “Wow,” he said. “Look at that boiled egg!”
A 5 year old came out of the museum to tell me this was the best museum he had ever been to. Then he added it was the first museum he had ever been to!
A boy was ordered to keep hold of his dads hand in case people thought he was a fossil. The boy looked horrified and said “I can’t do that - they will think I’ve stolen him!”
“Keep moving in here or they might put a price sticker on you!”
Woman looking suspiciously at coprolite (fossil dung) for sale, “It must be real, it has a fly on it!”
Young boy looking at the same fish: “I wonder where they got that kipper from.”
Puzzling Comments
I was chatting with a customer after he had visited the museum. He told me he was 76 years of age and then added, “probably about the same as you.” I have just reached my 60th birthday so this must be a reflection of my dealings with the town council.
A lady rushed out of the museum to ask how long a pheasant could be hung for. She then told me she had hung a brace in her cellar but forgotten about them before she came away on holiday.
A lady was asked by her children what an arthropod was. After some thought, she told them it was a creature with segmented feet. After more thought she added that cats and dogs have segmented feet.
Jenny, who is Scottish, recorded the message on our answerphone. A message was left by a charming gentleman saying “I **** couldn’t ***** understand a **** word you **** said!”.
In May 2010, a woman leading a group of people marched into our courtyard and started lecturing about our building. When I went outside to find out what they were doing, I was told they were from ‘the museum’ (whichever museum that might be) as though this was justification for not having the courtesy to seek permission first.
One woman spent ages in the museum and then complained about a missing apostrophe.
A man came in to ask if we did any dowsing.
A man took his family round the museum and at the end of the visit gathered his children around him and announced, “have you ever seen such wonderful evidence for Noah’s flood as the fossils in there?”
A lady with a thick Devon accent called to say that her husband regularly shot rabbits and would I like to buy them.
A man took his family round the museum and at the end of the visit gathered his children around him and announced, “have you ever seen such wonderful evidence for Noah’s flood as the fossils in there?”
A lady with a Welsh accent called to complain that I had not been open when she came to visit. It turned out she had gone to Tenby in Wales rather than Lyme Regis in England.
A woman called to book spaces on a fossil hunt. She called again to say she was on her way. She called again to say she was stuck in traffic. She called again to say she was in the car park, it had started raining and she was going home.