Two great reader submissions from the gang at the St. Louis Science Center (a museum, it bears pointing out, with a handful of real all-star exhibit developers.)  I couldn’t choose.  Vote for your favorite.

Er… is this an interactive or a collections item?  Anything that ramshackle under a museum vitrine has to be an artifact, right? (Right?) Let’s hope that just out of frame is a text panel identifying this as the work of, I don’t know, Thomas Edison’s nine-year-old.  Just after losing three fingers in a laboratory mishap.  (Actually, if I recognize this thing, then I know the guy who built it.  And though he may have been a classmate of Thomas Edison’s nine-year-old, he’s actually a really talented guy, who’s taught me a thing or three about building exhibits.)

And my favorite:

Well, I guess we can at least assume they aren’t having layoffs there.  The best compliment I can pay is to say that the scissor lift guys clearly didn’t spend any time rehearsing.  And believe me, that’s a compliment.  I love the part where it looks like the lift operator is double-checking the work order.  Hey, the customer is always right.  There are sillier ways to spend $28/hour.  Not that spring immediately to mind.  Do you guys own three scissor lifts?  Or do you just rent them for recitals?  Either way, surely there is room in the budget for a surprisingly affordable Silicon Valley Desuckification™ analyst.  (Box lunches are free to all workshop attendees.)

Thanks for the self-aware submissions, guys.  Don’t you feel lighter already?  And, um, maybe start tearing down those “Think Outside the Box” motivational posters you see around the office.  Someone there needs the box back.  Who was the famous Broadway choreographer who once said (and I’m paraphrasing) if your dance number has more scissor lifts than spectators, you really should be inside laminating a computer kiosk?  Or words to that effect.

The bar has been set.  Send in yours.  You’ll be cleansed.  It’s like confession.

william@museumssuck.com

(I actually thought the Segway thing was semi-cute-ish, but who am I to interfere with the healing process?)