Museum exhibits, like dental technicians, become very tiresome for me if they overdo the plaque thing. I have low interest in reading a plaque or listening about plaque (one exception -- I do enjoy reading about plagues on plaques). The Power of Poison exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New York has a high entertainment-to-plaque ratio, for which my family and I were grateful.

Our first come-upon was a small, live, caged Golden Poison Frog, indigenous to the rain forests of Central and South America. Those of us who weren't pretending to read the plaque about this deadly creature learned that local hunters rub handmade blowdarts along its back to poison-up their weapons -- up to 50 darts per frog back. I'm glad you can't find these creatures in the U.S., though I highly doubt that American frogs would sit still for that kind of thing.

The Golden Poison Frog

A patient, yet deadly amphibian

As we moved along the pathway, which was designed to have the dark, lush look and semi-creepy sounds of a rain forest, we saw that the next part of the Power of Poison exhibit included one of those continuous loop movies. I love those things! Set in a jungle, a poisonous newt had just crawled into a camper's water bottle. I wanted to watch the film, but I was caught up looking at all the people who were sitting on benches resting their feet, while we stood scattered around in the back of the room. Greta came up beside me.

"I'd like to get some of these lucky sitting people out of here so we can take a load off," I said to her under my breath. "What's if you snuck up behind one of them and did a fake blowdart noise to the back of his neck? Are you any good at making that sound?"

Greta lifted the small, rolled up poster that she'd purchased for Margot in the Whales: Giants of the Deep gift shop a few minutes before. "Lift up your hair," she said. "Let me practice on you."

"Pffffffhhhht!"

"Nailed it!" I said, impressed, still whispering. "But we can't go through with it. You're too good. Cardiac arrest is a real possibility. Someone could die."

"I know," she agreed, "but we don't have to give up on the idea. Look," she pointed across the room with the tip of the poster. "Margot's standing over there, totally engrossed." 

I nodded my head in Margot's direction and Greta set off. A few seconds later, Margot took a poison dart to the neck that might have killed a South American monkey, just out of fear. She jumped, then laughed -- all very quietly. As we exited through the gift shop I asked Margot why she didn't scream. "Watching that movie, I knew someone was gonna get poisoned. And of course it came as no surprise that it was me."