Little Shop Of Horrors I – Everything Is Free

Everything Is Free – Gillian Welsh

I can’t believe I am getting all this excitement on a Tuesday morning, and for only two bucks. Sure, the sign at the entrance of New York's Museum of Natural History states you can buy an adult ticket for the grown-up rate of sixteen dollars; but my friend Victor from Amsterdam and his girl Tara (they’re in New York after spending Thanksgiving together with her family in New Jersey) have inside information. They have taken me here to see the Cape York meteorite. It is 4.5 billion years old; so heavy that its supports go through the floor, straight down to the solid rock beneath the building; and best of all, you’re allowed to touch it. Or, as Victor happily suggests, lick it. So off we go, to the museum, to go lick a meteorite.

Tara used to live in the city for years, and, with her being a Jersey girl and all, she knows things that your average NYC newbie doesn’t.
For instance, that the entrance fee for the Museum of Natural History is not mandatory. It is a suggested fee, as the small print on the sign informs the more perceptive visitor. If you wish to make a smaller donation, all you have to do is make your wish known at the cash register. So we decide to get in for less. Or rather, Victor and Tara decide, and I scurry after them with glowing cheeks and that immediate mixture of envy, embarrassment and girl-crush I tend to get whenever there’s a take charge woman around who isn’t afraid to ask for things that are perfectly legal – albeit unorthodox, and, in the long run, quite possibly devastating for (in this case) the museum’s very existence. We can’t just walk in and not pay, I shriek. What if everybody decides not to pay the full amount? What if nobody would pay for anything anymore ever again? What if the museum goes broke and we’re totally to blame? What if the cashier spits in our faces for disrespecting a trillion years of natural history? What if the line behind us turns into a stampeding vigilante, looking for literal payback? Show me a random cluster of people and I'll show you an angry mob waiting to happen.

I struggle to sugarcoat my hesitation with morality, so I don’t have to consider the fact that, for all my exterior boldness, I am a coward at heart. Especially when it comes to buying things. I am one of those people who will pay full price for anything, no questions asked. I never bargain for discounts, even when stuff is clearly damaged or broken. I don’t have any particular ideology to back up my just-pay-and-get-it-over-with mentality, nor any deeply rooted childhood trauma type of explanation. I am generally not afraid to earn the scorn or contempt of strangers. I’m not easily embarrassed; I seldom back away from any opportunity to make a fool of myself in public. I just can’t get myself to go up to a vendor and say, ‘Hey, what do you say I take this junk off your hands for half?’ Just thinking about it makes my ears burn. I’d rather shoot myself in the kneecap; I can’t believe Tara and Victor would have the bravado to just go ahead and barter, without so much as blinking.
It’s simple, Tara figures. She’s an underpaid artist who likes to sniff some culture every once in a while. If she had the money, she’d pay. But she doesn’t, so what’s a poor girl to do? Just because people can’t afford the financial hemorrhage it takes to witness the Cape York meteorite, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to see it. Or does it?
I got nothing. My friends shrug the shrug of the brave and free, pick up their pace, and trot, heads up high and backs straight, to the nearest cash register – with me whimpering in their wakes. Tara tells the lady behind the counter we would like to pay less than the suggested fee. The lady merely asks us how much we are willing to donate; when Tara puts six bucks for the three of us on the counter top, she takes them and asks if we would like a floor plan. We take one and off we go – full speed ahead to the meteorite!

For about two minutes, I am light-headed with angst. I feel like I have committed some kind of cultural crime, an educational burglary. I am swindling my way back to the origin of man! But after a diorama or two the sensation wears off, and makes way for giddy, glorious curiosity to see the miracles of life this museum has on offer. I promise myself that, next time, I’ll pay double. For now, I plan to absorb it all. So here I am: watching Victor as he's about to lick the Cape York meteorite at two bucks a pop. Good times!