Science Museum Gift Shops

Hell should have an eighth level for owners of museum gift stores.

We went to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences today with the kids. Just a quick plug: this is a great museum. It's free, and it offers a wide variety of educational programs for kids of all ages (at least all the way up to the age of 69, my young-at-heart mother-in-law.) The food at the onsite cafeteria, the Daily Planet, is pretty good for an on-site cafeteria, although not covered by the free admission.

Anyway …

As fascinating and engaging as this museum was (and I should mention we were there for over four hours and we still did not get to see and do everything), as early as lunch the kids were chorusing to go to the gift store. I was really reluctant to go, because I could see all kinds of disappointment in such a trip. "Well, okay, if we have time," I conceded, "as long as everyone keeps in mind that we are not buying anything. We are just looking."

"We are just looking." the kids agreed. I meant it, too. Both of my kids have rooms chockful of "souvenirs" acquired at similar gift shops, and there is reluctance to part with a single item even though many of these gifts have not been played with in years.

My kids could smile and nod, of course, because even if my lips said, "No, no," my mother-in-law would never let them down. And they were, of course, correct. But this blog is about my overindulgence, not my kids'; that's a topic for another blog.

That said, there were a couple of the items that were awfully hard to turn my back on. First off, there was the Moon Light:

Now, why did I find this so appealing? I always like moon objects, and I like lights (they make me feel cheerful.) I found myself thinking, "Well, I have that $20 I got from my aunt for my birthday …"

But then I asked myself, "But how often would I actually use this?" I thought about the fact that I have a salt lamp at home that I almost never use unless I make a conscious decision to do so (I'm an adult and have no need for a nightlight), and while it was more expensive than this moon lamp, it's also a lot more attractive. I don't need another piece of plastic gathering dust in my room. And if I had the option of coming back to the museum next week, would I actually buy it? Probably not. Pure impulse buy.

The next item was a little harder to walk away from:

Not to sound like a teenaged girl with a unicorn fetish, I have a superstitious fascination with rainbows. Although I know it sounds silly, I tend to think of rainbows as being a good omen … and whether it is coincidence or not, usually good things have happened after I've seen rainbows. Secondly, it is solar-powered! How cool is that? And here I have a nice southern-facing glass door at home, and $20 burning a hole in my pocket …

But I resisted. This is a cool item, and yes, I probably would buy it if I had a week to think about it. But it cost more than $20 -- it cost $30. And while I could certainly spring for the additional $10, and while it would give me pleasure, and it would not sit around and go unappreciated … it's still a thing. A thing with the potential to clutter my house. A thing made of plastic that had to be transported from God knows where, and that I don't need. There's my New Year's resolution and the principles of the thing.

So I was tempted and came out strong. But while I can appreciate that the gift shop does allow the museum to operate at no cost to its visitors, I can see that I'll need to be more careful what stores I idly wander into. But before I get too proud of myself, a reality check -- we are only 20 days into the new year.