Preface.
My job at museum necessitates that I get a lot of phone calls from the general (& crazy) public. I usually get your run of the mill questions about hours, exhibitions, but every so often I'll get a weird one like the time Lt. Col. from the Dept. of Defense at the Pentagon called or the one I got today, which takes the cake.

Part I.
1:00pm, the phone rings, I answer, "Museum name..." A guy says "I have a question about touring the museum. I'm a nudist, can I come to your museum." I said, "Pardon me?" He says, "I'm a nudist, I want to visit your museum, can I?" Now my first impulse was to laugh and think it was a friend prank calling me (side note, one time a friend called and pretended she wanted to bring a group of ex-cons), but I have to treat every person as if they're serious so I say, "You're welcome to visit the museum, but I'd need to check to see what our policy is; I've honestly never had this question." (I'm thinking to myself no way in hell is a someone allowed into a museum on Fifth Avenue butt nekkid, but I don't want to discriminate so I figure I'll double check.) I add that I don't think it would be allowed because we have to abide by NYC ordinance and I doubted nudity is allowed in public--I asked if he was from NY and if he was able to walk to the store without clothes. He said, "Sometimes. I try to if I can." We decide that Tommy (he tells me his name) will call me back at 3pm to see what our policy is, because he'd really prefer to visit "bare-ass" if he can.


Part II.
I check with our Director of Operations, the Security Department handbook and the New York City Police Department. As suspected, nudity in a public building is against the law and those breaking the law can be fined.

Most everyone in the museum with whom I speak thinks it was a prank call, but I think Tommy is the real deal. I also think there must be varying levels of nudity so maybe "bare-ass" is a technical term, like a g-string instead of full frontal. (Thankfully no one brings up the Prince Gett Off assless pants )


Part III.
2:48pm, the phone rings, it's Tommy. I say, "As I mentioned before you are welcome to visit the museum, but I checked with our Security Department and the NYPD and you would need to wear clothes--a shirt, pants or short, and shoes." He says, "Really, because I've been to other galleries and they didn't mind." I said, "Well, we are a public institution and therefore we have to adhere to city, state, and federal law." He tries to tell me that federal law doesn't prohibit it, so I offered to give him the phone number for NYPD general info line. Desperate, he asks, "What about body paint?" I said, "No I'm sorry, you'd need to wear clothes." I thank him for calling and tell him to have a nice weekend.


What






the








hell?




Afterword: I couldn't believe I was actually having a serious conversation about whether this guy could visit a museum in the Upper East Side in the nude! I have nothing against nudists, but the thought of this guy coming to a museum full of old Jewish ladies and Caribbean nannies with their white charges made me I could just imagine the look on their faces and the complaints rolling in. Poor Tommy, must be rough to be a nudist in New York, having to wear clothing all the time.

omg!!!

That's awesome.

it had to have been someone having you on!!!


nice start to your weekend lol...
have fun at prince night at berlin's!

I used to work for the city council, in the in-house design department, but all 800 employees were trained to answer calls from the general public, just in case a caller missed one number or something. To check up on the phone manner of employees we were warned of "mystery shoppers" calling - often with unusual requests. The policy was that the first person you call at the council can answer your questions without putting you through to anyone else.

I got a mystery shopper call once asking where he could get non-smoking stickers. I put him on hold and made some enquiries, apologised for the delay and gave him his answer. To which he said "good girl!"

psst.....my confirmation name is Thomas.....




hope you're havin' a good weekend!!!

emm said:

I know, everyone was like, "it has to be a prank." but I could tell the guy was older (50-60) and if it was a friend of mine, they would have had to get someone else to call. And why call back at 3 when he said he would? When my friend prank called me about the ex-cons, she called my direct line and a number showed up on caller id. This call came to my general line (i.e. the one that's posted on the website) and showed up only as "external call."

I think it was a real nudist--it could have maybe been some pervy guy who got off talking about it, but he wasn't pervy or aggressive to me during the call. Didn't ask me any personal questions or describe anything about how he was nude.

I dunno...it was definitely the most bizarre call I've ever received, and I've gotten a lot of random calls over the years. But it's going to make a great story for my friends in Chi-town.

reneGade20 said: