What Do You Do…?

What do you do when you have a tour of the museum scheduled, and no one shows up? On Monday night, we had an after-hours event planned for students to take a special tour of the museum. We were trying to get some students into the museum since we are basically only open for them. All semester, we have had a grand total of two visitors. Our actual numbers look much better to the administration because every time we walk up front to open or close the museum or go to the restroom, it counts us as visitors, but we are the only ones who know that. 

We organized a special event so students could register to come to the museum at night, have some food, and have a special tour. We ordered sliders (barbecue bacon cheddar, black and blue, and mushroom swiss burgers), chips, drinks, and brownies, all of which were advertised on the flyers. We set up a scheduling system for tours on Monday and Wednesday, with two tours each night. It was supposed to be a fun “Night at the Museum.” 

However, only one student actually signed up. We should have canceled on Friday when we still could cancel the food, but my coworkers decided to hope that more students would sign up over the weekend. I tried to tell them that they wouldn’t, and we’d be wasting a lot of food, but they wouldn’t listen to me. So, Monday rolled around. My coworker, who was supposed to be helping with the tour, came down with food poisoning, and I was left to do the tour on my own, which is fine since we only expected one student. I knew there would be a lot of food, so I invited my neighbor and friend who works in the library to come.

As it turned out, the one student never showed. My friend came, and we had a dinner of sliders and chips. Then we boxed up all of the food and put it in the refrigerator, and then I gave her the tour. We had a fun time, just the two of us. Even though she works next door in the library and had been in the museum numerous times, she’s never really gotten a tour of the museum. Both of us talk a lot, so time got away from us. As I was finishing the tour, I looked at my watch and realized three hours had passed. We both had fun, though, so it wasn’t a problem. However, I am still disappointed that no students came. We canceled the tours for tonight. No one had signed up for them anyway.