First thing you see after buying your ticket is a magnificent, eight-foot tall statue of Vairocana (a celestial Buddha). There was plenty of room with little foot traffic, so I set the tripod up for a shot. Unbeknownst to me at that moment, behind me a security guard was patiently waiting for me to finish. Once I had done, in true Canadian fashion, he said ‘Sorry’, explaining with heartfelt regret that my tripod wasn't allowed. Nor monopods, either.

“Trip Hazard?” asked I.

He replied along the lines of, “Possibly so. I'm very sorry.”

I showed him the 3D shot I’d just taken of Lord Vairocana, and explained about the problems of double-shadows with a 3D camera. Told how always I had to endure a long, flash-free exposure to avoid double shadows.

Then I proposed, “How about if I collapse it, draw the legs all the way in, so the ends are all together, the tips nowhere near to the floor. At least then I’ll have the dead weight to help hold it steady?”

“Like that?” asks he. “Should be okay. But keep it that way. Don’t be using it as a tripod or monopod.”

Which I promised that henceforth I would.

Then while lining up for the shot second-from-left in the row just below, a different guard came up behind insistant upon my most immediate attention and accusing brusquely, “Tripods are not allowed. You may not use it. Put it away.”

Now, it is not my usual habit to identify random strangers by race, as in the usual case it is of no import. However, it here may prove informative, should there happen to soon read this account, a ranking employee of the ROM’s HR department. Informative in the same manner as learning that the photo taken a moment before bears an EXIF time-stamp of 2018-09-26 12:19:59. May it then happen that the ROM’s HR department might choose to remember to him the impression he left upon a paying customer to their establishment. So then, be it known, he was youngish (compared to me at 62), also tall (as opposed to my 170 centimeters), of medium build and African-Canadian (to paraphrase a south-of-the-border hyphenation). If, indeed, truly he is an actual Canadian. It gives me some pause, as this would be my first-ever encounter with a deliberately rude northern neighbor. My lovely wife is Canadian, and so I have met quite a number. But I digress. So back to the story.

So then, this second and none-to-polite uniformed security guard next added, “You must take it to the coat check.”

Nor would he let me explain. He dismissed any notion of my having struck a in polite fashion with first guard to keep its five telescoping sections fully collapsed, the three legs folded together, such that it now served as no more than a stabilizing dead weight ... which in terms of function rendered it not a tripod at all. He put on a face of insultingly frank disbelief as to my having reached this agreement with the first guard, then turned on his heel and swaggered pridefully away.

However annoyed, there was no choice but to comply ... in due course. ‘Due course’ being once I had completed the shot so rudely interrupted. Especially as the view was momentarily unencumbered by pedestrian traffic. Any movement whatever during a long exposure without flash makes for very unsightly blurs. And doubly weird blurs at that on a 3D camera. The left and right lenses would record it variously, perhaps even upsetting contrast between left and right (for which there are some slight examples displayed on this page ... with worse ones having required permanent deletion. So my fear was, that by the time I might return from the coat check, chances were good of there being foot traffic here once again. I figured to grab this one shot, and perhaps just one or two more while people were absent, then I’d march off in search of the coat-check, which being ‘near the entrance’, meant crossing through two fairly large rooms plus retracing my steps. A very few more minutes here, and I’d not have to come back. I would comply, just a few minutes belatedly.

Some very few minutes later, though the rude guard returned, this time to snidely inquire, “What happened?”, and lending a tone to his voice and slant to his posture of quite blatant sarcasm, adding further “I told you to put that way.” Which aren’t his exact words precisely, but close enough. For lack of a recording, I can give near approximations. Of his words, anyhow. The tone and posture are both precisely remembered.

Seriously, it had only been a very few minutes. Less time than I could have gone and returned. Thus he surely knew I had not gone and returned. Sarcasm, then, beyond any doubt. My dander now up, I replied a bit stiffly, “My next stop after leaving this room.” Here again, no guarantee of literal precision. Only my words as best I remember, with doubtless a layer of sarcasm entering then into my own voice as well.

He grew more brusque even yet. Again, I cannot quote him exactly, but it was something very like, “No. As in right now. Tripods are not allowed. Also, I’d like to know just who exactly was this other ’guard’ that you spoke of. I’d like to meet him.”

So now, on top of annoyance, I’m also embarrassed, because I can’t identify the earlier guard with any precision. My wife surely could have, had she been with me in that moment. She’d been part of our joint discussion with the first security guard. And she’s a keen observer of people, always remembering which was our waitress in restaurants when I almost never can. Then again too, my wife also holds very high standards for customer service from a 30-plus year career in both banking and sales. And not even medium standards for polite exchange were anywhere in evidence here. As to the earlier guard, the very polite one, I could remember little beyond his being older than this one, with perhaps some gray in his hair, and also Caucasian. Which latter distinction seemed not very likely to ease the tension should I choose to make mention. Nor would I to rat out the one who’d been polite just on the off-chance that, indeed, he had bent a rule slightly.

Nor would I have done even had the first guy’s name tag flashed suddenly then with utmost clarity into my mind. Not by this point in the exchange. Because of the sarcastic tone, how it felt, and that very much, was that I’d been accused having lied ... and done a contemptibly poor job of it, even. As Marvin Martian might say, ‘That makes me very angry. Very angry indeed.’

So it seemed an appropriate moment for hearkening back to my days as a sailor. Dusting off a somewhat rusty vernacular, I contrived a completely insincere smile, turned my gaze up to meet my accuser directly and inquired, “Okay, then. Where exactly is the fucking ’coat check’?” Enunciating the words very clearly, I hoped to convey a pretend disbelief in its actual existence. Not sure if that got across.

It did, however, achieve a satisfying result, as he took considerable umbrage at my choice of adjective. An instant contortion of his facial expression. Hopefully also a measure of frustration. Since what could he do, as I’d made no threat. And although I’ve never researched the question, I surely suspect that Canada is and remains a free-speech society to no less degree than USA, but with the vast bulk of its citizenry choosing politeness as a virtue.

”Don’t you ever blaspheme at me. Not ever,” was his reply, voice very tense. He stepped in closer and loomed when he said it. Attempting, I have no doubt, to imply a threat. An empty threat, I had to trust, and put my faith in the existence of security cameras hopefully recording the scene.

”Well... Where is it? You never said.” I replied attempting a flatly bland tone. Likely I failed somewhat in that attempt. I held back from further recourse to my Navy vocabulary dredged up from decades past. I too was at an impasse. Having gone straight for the F-bomb, there really wasn’t anything left other than just repeating myself. Such is the trouble when one’s out of practice.

Yes, it was childish, to a degree. But satisfying nevertheless. Had not this jerk begun our exchange in an uncivil tone more to be expected in New York or Chicago instead of friendly Toronto? Was not his sinking to sarcasm yet further deliberate provocation?The man had succeeded in ’damaging my calm’ (ref. “Firefly”, the TV show). And here of all places, amid so many statues of Buddhas and Arahants. My enjoyment of the surroundings thus thoroughly ruined, feeding a measure of disrespect right back to him helped in part to repair our mutual imbalance. Did I not, after all, surely detect by way of the other’s lowered tone and looming posture the desire of an excuse to, ahem ’exercise his authority’? Declining to offer him quite so much excuse as very clearly he hoped for, I remained just as I was, pointedly not stepping back to assume any kind of defensive posture. Three thoughts argued against it. The first was a bit of advice which I myself had so often drilled into students of a Tae Kwon Do class which I used to help teach: namely, to keep always in mind how very, very expensive a lawyer (sorry, barrister) would prove. Second was the high probability of my being out of a job should my return be delayed due to any months-long legal complications in a foreign country. Third was that in lieu of my inch-thick, solid hickory cane, the only potential weapon at hand was my flimsy, hollow-tube aluminum tripod, folded up short ... with its irreplacable 3D camera attached. Convincing arguments escallation, all three of those. Add to that our vacation surely ruined, plus every future anniversary tainted by memory of a most unpleasant event.

Note: Merriam-Webster defines ‘blaspheme’ as a transitive verb, meaning “to speak in a way that shows irreverence for God or something sacred.” And so I regret having missed the opportunity of quoting Inigo Montoya by way of farewell (ref. “The Princess Bride”, the book, later movie). Or can it be that truely he does revere the ROM’s coat-check either as God, or something sacred?