Art Institution

What I learned on a trip to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts with Justin and Alex.

People will get mad if you try to turn left onto 31st Street from the center lane of Blaisdell Avenue, even if it’s not your fault that you don’t realize you’re on a one-way street.
Justin has a paralyzing fear of ancient Asian art, particularly statues of Buddha.
Promising Justin that if we take the elevator and bypass the menacing statues, he’ll see mummies, swords, paintings, giant paintings, and naked people in paintings is not enough to persuade him to get up from a bench by the coat check.
If you touch one thing, the MIA Security Gestapo will follow you around as if you were an international art thief who might go all Mission Impossible and suddenly pull grappling hooks out of your camera bag and shimmy up through the roof carrying your two kids, a Rembrandt, and a Van Gogh. If they succeed in intimidating you to the point where you leave their sector, they’ll radio ahead to get the next detail to pick up the tail.
On the way home, you can make up names for lakes and ponds in response to the 10,000 “What lake is that?” questions you are peppered with and no one will know the difference. Beats being yelled at if you say you don’t know the name.
Next time maybe it will be smarter to just go to the zoo. Maybe culture is lost on the young, especially if it’s so prohibitive.

Sunflower Girl