Man Plans, And God Laughs

Sunday October 12th was the first day of receiving visitors at The Biblical Museum of Natural History. (I can't really call it opening day, because we have not officially launched yet - we are still working on many things - but that's when we began receiving visitors.) What with it being such a significant day, not to mention chol hamoed, I made sure to approach it accordingly. In the morning, after showering, I dressed very respectably, as befitting such a day.

Man plans, and God laughs.

I walked into the museum in the morning and saw, to my horror, that the door to the cage housing the monitor lizard was open, and the monitor had escaped!

Of all the animals to escape, this was the worst. First, he is extremely valuable. Second, he is three feet long and quite vicious - not the sort of thing you want unexpectedly encountering a visitor!

After twenty minutes of frantic searching, I found him wedged behind another cage, and after another half hour of scrabbling on the floor with a stick, I managed to extract him. As I hauled him back to the cage, he demonstrated his indignation in typical reptilian style - by evacuating on my pants.

Sweaty, disheveled, dusty, and dirty, I started the day of tours. Baruch Hashem, it was very successful; we hosted nearly a hundred visitors in four groups. If people noticed the state of my clothing, they were kind enough not to comment. During one tour, I managed another mishap; one of the "tame" animals bit me quite hard during a presentation. I didn't have time to stop, so I carried on speaking, while some of the tour participants worked to stem the flow of blood from my finger and patch me up.

So much for my attempts at a fresh, clean, respectable appearance! Man plans, and God laughs.