Mayhem at the Museum

I went to the National Museum of the US Air Force again this afternoon. I had a motive for going there, but I'll get to that later. First I ate some lunch in the park outside the museum. Then I went to see some of the outside exhibits, which I missed on my first trip. I had to get a picture with the museum name out front. I've gone back and forth on whether selfies are too narcissistic for me, but I do like that they put me in the location with the things I'm looking at. Otherwise it's just a picture of a sign or an airplane or something, and you can get that in a book or online and have it look a lot better than anything I would take with my phone. So I've been taking selfies because they help to connect me with the memory.

One thing I needed to see was the F-15 the Museum has out in front. The SR-71 might be my favorite airplane, but the F-15 is right up there with it. I just think it's a beautiful aircraft. It was a lot easier to take a picture with this one than the one inside the building, because that one is tucked away in a dark corner. This one is out in the sun. After looking at the other things outside the buildings I went inside for the real reason I came to the museum.

I am getting close to the end of my trip here, so I've been looking at the stuff I have to pack. One thing I'd accumulated over the last few weeks was a bunch of pennies. I didn't want to haul 30 pennies home with me and I remembered that the Museum has one of these...

It's a Spiral Wishing Well coin funnel. I'm sure most everyone has seen one before, but you drop coins in those little ramps and they roll around the funnel until eventually they drop down into the collection tub in the base. I took out my handful of coins and started putting them into the slots two or three at a time, until all 30 of them were spinning around and around in opposite directions. All those coins made a lot of noise, and that noise got the attention of pretty much every kid in the gift shop. They all rushed toward the coin funnel and began to pester their parents for coins to drop in the funnel. It was Mayhem at the Museum! All of their parents rolled their eyes and began digging for coins in purses and pockets, cursing me for inconveniencing their lives. A couple of them had to go and make change in order to get coins for their offspring. It was glorious. Once I was done surveying the trouble I'd caused, I went and looked at some airplanes and then went back to the hotel to watch some Olympics, which is probably what I'll be doing until I go to bed. I probably ought to work some homework into my schedule at some point, too.