When I noticed I was leading a tour with a group from a small Christian school in Texas, I thought, “Okay, I’ll have to be careful about what I say.” I didn’t think, “Hmm…what potentially offensive things await us in New York City and Washington, DC.” Apparently, I shouldn’t have been so happy-go-lucky because things got ugly—fast.
Now before I go any further, I cannot stress enough how NICE these people were. We’re talking sweet, salt-of-the-earth types. Really, really nice. So nice that it makes me feel bad even writing about them, except that it simply needs to be done.
At first, I wasn’t so sure how nice the lead teacher was, considering her voice mail message was so abrupt. (To be read in a harsh, annoyed tone as if you really had just interrupted her in the middle of doing something important.) “I am busy. Leave a message. I will call you back when I have time. God bless.”
Well, upon finally speaking to her, I discovered that she was perfectly lovely. Then, upon meeting her, I thought we’d get along swimmingly. And we did….even through all of the trouble that followed. Now one thing I will say is that the woman (and apparently everyone with whom she was traveling) had the worst sense of direction that I have EVER witnessed. For instance, once I picked them up from the airport, we drove them into Manhattan and dropped them off at Lexington and 49th Street. Being uber-prepared, I had printed off a map and highlighted the route they needed to take to get to Rockefeller Center and Times Square, which, from where we were, was STRAIGHT DOWN 49th Street. I really thought I had covered all of my bases before getting back on the bus to pick up the other group. I even went to the trouble to walk them to the corner of Lexington and 49th and physically point down 49th Street to the 30 Rockefeller Plaza building saying, “Walk down this street to that building with the ‘GE’ symbol on top”.
Apparently that wasn’t enough.
When I returned a couple hours later to Rockefeller Center, I ran into a couple of the kids and asked if they had fun. I was met with a frown. Thinking that odd, I approached the lead teacher’s husband who told me they never found Times Square. In fact, they had JUST found Rockefeller Center. Wondering how it took them two and a half hours to walk five blocks, I asked how they got lost.
“We walked down Lexington for seven blocks before we realized we were going the wrong way.”
“Oh,” I said. “Was the map not helpful?”
“Not really. We finally had a nice New Yorker point us in the right direction. This map marks the wrong church as St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Still baffled, I answered “No, that’s St. Patrick’s. I can see the spires from here.”
“Well, we found a church down Lexington, and that wasn’t St. Patrick’s.” He challenged me.
“Okay, that’s because St. Patrick’s is on 5th Ave. and 51st. It’s nowhere near Lexington and , where were you? 42nd?”
“Right, that’s what the guy told us.”
With slight sarcasm, I asked, “So, the map wasn’t helpful at all then, huh?”
He shook his head. “Not when you’re on the wrong street.”
“I see. Were there no street signs?”
“There were, but none of them said 49th.”
And with that I decided to drop the conversation because, and I know I don’t even need to say this, who thinks they’re on 49th Street when all of the street signs say differently? Seriously. Have you NEVER walked down a street before? Have you never DRIVEN down a street before? Have you never left your house?
Once the disappointment of walking around Manhattan for two and a half hours without ever once managing to find ANY of the major sights (which are kinda hard to miss), the group seemed to have a good time. We had dinner in Chinatown. We went up the Empire State Building, then I succumbed to the other group leader’s wishes to take them to Ellen’s Stardust Diner (which was a HUGE mistake since the Texas group didn’t want to be there and only went along for the ride…and because the other teacher was a bit of a bully, thus leading me to walk the Texas group down to Times Square where we got caught in a torrential downpour without umbrellas…and I ran into a trash can while turning my head to say something, which turned into a trip highlight for all who were with me at the time). Then, we made it to the hotel in Jersey for a good night’s sleep.
The next day we went to the Statue of Liberty, checked out the WTC site, and then I took them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A place that the Texas lead teacher’s husband could not stop talking about. I thought I had it made. Then, after I got their tickets and sent everyone on their way, I got an angry phone call from the Texas teacher.
“We have a problem. I don’t mean to be offensive to you, but this place isn’t for children. I am just so shocked and upset right now, I don’t know what to do. We have to leave immediately. I have called all of the chaperones, and the children are being brought down right now. We have to go. I just didn’t know that these sort of obscene things would be in here. This is just completely inappropriate. Had I known that we were going to a place that had this sort of thing, then I never would have allowed us to even walk through the door. This is just unacceptable.”
Confused as to what the problem was at what is the greatest museum in the United States and probably one of the top three museums in the entire world with the largest collection of genuine ancient antiquities around (on par with and, in some cases, better than the British Museum and the Louvre), I simply started apologizing. “I’m so sorry to hear that. I had no idea. I’ll come meet you immediately.”
“Well, it’s not your fault. How would you have known? But this is just disgusting. I can’t have the children here. It is against our faith.”
“I understand that, and I am very sorry. Let me get to where you are, and we’ll figure out a second plan.”
“Don’t get me wrong. If it were just my husband and I, this wouldn’t be a problem. But with the children…” She trailed off a bit. “This is just wrong. I can’t expose them to this. My principal was opposed to this trip because he felt they’d get exposed to things that were immoral and wrong, and this is exactly the kind of thing he was worried about.”
“Well, I just can’t apologize enough.”
She continued. “I don’t blame you or the company. This is my fault. I should have done more research on this place. I just thought it was going to be paintings. And I know I could steer the children away from what I saw, but who knows what else is in here. Who knows what other disgusting, obscene things they might run into.”
With that, I told her I was on my way. I took the elevator up to the group entrance and popped out in…a room full of Greek statues. Ancient, Greek statues. Naked, Ancient Greek statues. And that’s when it all became clear. And that’s when I knew I was in trouble, because, really? You went to the website of the Met, and, at no point, did you consider that there might be nudity in the art? Have you never seen art? Have you never seen religious art? Do you not realize that the people that sculpted these statues or painted these pictures were probably even MORE religious than most Christians today? Uhhh…Michelangelo anyone? Was he not essentially an indentured servant to the Church when he painted the Sistene Chapel? Is Rome (and the Vatican City) not covered with nude statues? And it’s not as if the Met is covered in paintings or sculptures depicting one of Caligula’s orgies. They’re just naked people, standing there, doing nothing. And they’re not even people. They’re marble statues.
But, despite my personal feelings that naked art does not always equal porn, I found the teacher, and I apologized up and down. As all of the students made their way to the entrance with their chaperones, they all seemed disappointed. None of them were fazed by the statues, but the lead teacher was beyond offended.
As we waited for everyone, I was standing next to a couple of the students out of earshot of the lead teacher, shook my fist and said, “Those Greeks!”
“Yeah,” said one girl. “Why’d they have to ruin the museum for everyone. If only they weren’t so weirdly obsessed with God’s masterpiece of the human form.”
And as much as I would have liked to point out the irony in her statement and the current situation, I just smiled.
We gathered everyone together and walked to the bus…and they were all peeved (And I really felt like I was getting dirty looks from the lead teacher’s husband as if I somehow were a disgusting pervert with no moral foundation). I walked the few that wanted to do something OTHER than sit on the bus through Central Park, and then the other group emerged from the museum, and we went to dinner.
After dinner, we went to see the family musical, Mary Poppins. And, really, what could be MORE family-friendly than a spoon full of sugar? As I would learn…plenty. And here I thought I was in the clear. It’s Mary f-ing Poppins, for crying out loud!
Now I’ve seen the musical before, and I couldn’t think of anything all that offensive, especially considering it’s a Disney production. The only thing that I thought MIGHT be a red flag is the scene where all of the toys come to life and talk about how they want revenge on the children that mistreat them (because it’s more than a little disturbing). Unfortunately, I failed to remember the scene where they jump into the painting.
Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. What could POSSIBLY have happened in the painting scene that was so offensive. I discovered that “thing” when I awoke from my brief snooze about twenty minutes into the production and saw the statue come to life. The Greek statue. The Greek statue with a fig leaf over his junk. My eyelids flew open, and I leaned over, hissing, “Shit.” Then, I scanned the seats for the lead teacher, who was sitting with her hand to her forehead, shaking her head in disgust.
I have never felt more uncomfortable in a theater, even when I went to the ping pong show in Bangkok (mostly because that was more creepy and sad than anything). I split my viewing time between the scene and the teacher. More statues danced into the scene, and the look on her face became more concerning to me. Finally, after what felt like three hours, the scene ended, and I scanned my brain trying to remember if the statue made another appearance, hoping he wouldn’t.
The show continued. Intermission came around. Nothing was said. The second act started, and about twenty minutes before it was over, the statue made his encore, and the entire row of students from Texas made their exit. I jumped up immediately and ran to find the teacher. She just shook her head at me with a grave look in her eye.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know. It’s not your fault. This is just disgusting. It’s appalling. We have to go. I can’t condone this. It’s just pornographic, and they’ve tarnished what WAS a children’s show. They made it into something disgusting and obscene. It’s just not appropriate for children. I’m shocked that so many children were in the audience. You shouldn’t expose them to this. We just can’t be here anymore. I shouldn’t have stayed after the first scene, but I knew I had to do something when it happened again, otherwise the students wouldn’t respect me and they wouldn’t be able to know what is appropriate and what is wrong.”
With that, I sent her off to the bus.
The other teacher from the other group that was traveling with me was utterly appalled, and that became even worse when we got to the bus and the Texas teacher and all of the chaperones were off shopping in Times Square.
ok, for thus entire post I had assumed these "children" were like 5 years old!
ReplyDeleteThat is bizarre. Your having to be rational in the face of irrational customers reminds me of a retail experience I had yesterday where the 60-something-year-old customers behind me in line were either blind or insane or some combination thereof. It takes a special kind of patience to work in customer service. Kudos to you.
ReplyDelete