The New Orleans Museum of Art had their annual Japan Festival this past weekend.  Since Mrs. Commissioner and I are going to Japan in the spring, we thought we'd go to the Japan fest.  They had some Japanese drummers there, and we thought it would be a fun thing for the little deputies to check out.  Of course, about 2 minutes into the drummers, the little deputy announces he wants to go potty, and into the museum we go. 

After the requisite potty going, and the endless fascination with the automatic soap dispenser, whereby the little deputy automatically dispensed enough soap to clean all of the animal cages at the zoo, we were back in the museum.  Mrs. Commissioner decided she wanted to watch the tea ceremony.  We both decided there was no chance in hell the deputies were going to sit through that, which means, I get to go through the museum with the deputies.  That means only one thing.  We get to ride the elevator.  Does the elevator have a Picasso hanging on its walls?  No. The elevator has something better.  It has 26000 buttons that light up, and one, the alarm button, that makes a loud noise when you press it.  Fortunately, we got on the elevator with a Orleans Parish Sheriff's deputy.  He kindly explained to the little deputy, "if you touch anything in the museum, you will go to jail." 

The little deputy proudly announced, "I don't want to go to jail."  The Sheriff's deputy told him, "no, you don't."

Fast forward 2 minutes, we are walking through the Oceania exhibit.  The little deputy sees a wooden statue, about 4 feet tall.  What does little deputy do to the statue?  Does he ohh and ahh over it?  Does he look at it and tell me its art significance? Does he look at it and say, daddy what is this?  No.  He did none of those things.  He tackles it.  He flat out took it down, along with the little plate describing what it is.  Sprawled out on the floor are the little deputy, the statue and the descriptive name plate.  I pick up the deputy, the statue and the name plate, trying to put the statue and the plate back where they were.  The little deputy laid on the floor, SCREAMING "I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL!"  I tried telling him to calm down. DADDY I DON'T WANT TO GO TO JAIL.  He screamed, he didn't want to go to jail for about 3 minutes.  I decided to get him out of there and go get Mrs. Commissioner out of the tea ceremony.  Once we got on the elevator, of course, he pressed the alarm button, setting off, well, the alarm.

When the elevator doors opened at the bottom, I'm holding the little deputy, he is SCREAMING, I DON'T WANT A SPANKING.  Nice touch.  Now a museum full of people think I'm a child abuser.  I would have much rather him screamed, I don't want to go to jail.  But now that we are front of 100 people, he has to scream, he doesn't want me to beat him.

They don't serve beer at the museum.  I sure needed one.