We discovered a couple of threads on Reddit where tourist guides have been sharing the funniest, strangest, and most infuriating things they've seen their groups do and say. From baffling questions to outright reckless behavior, these stories show that leading people through new places isn't just about showing them the sights, it's also about managing chaos, keeping everyone safe, and sometimes just trying not to lose your marbles.
#1
I worked at a living history farm museum. I had a kid that was climbing on stuff the whole tour in the farm house and trying to get behind the Smith in the blacksmith shop during a demo.
After the tour when people are allowed to roam the grounds, I hear his mom screaming and look over to the barn and this kid has climbed the fence into the field with our long horn oxen and is trying to poke them with a stick. I walk over and calmly told him to get out of the field before our lazy oxen decide they've had enough, but this jack off decides to look me in the eye and smack Ted on the a*s with the stick like it's a riding crop. Ted, bless him, just kinda jumps a little and whips his head around with a WTF dude look on his face. But seeing as he's a long horn, he just wipes this kid out with one of his horns when he turned his head. Kid goes flying into the dirt and is having a melt down. Mom is freaking out. I'm like dude, get the hell out of the pen before Ted actually gets mad.
So this kid is crying and trying to climb the fence out of the field and Bill, who has been watching this whole thing waits until the kid is almost over the fence and walks up to him and nudges him in the a*s with his nose and pushes him off the top of the fence. It was everything I could do to keep from laughing.
Kid was fine, Ted was fine, but the kid and his mom were promptly kicked out of the museum. Their dad and little sister were allowed to stay because she was well behaved and was just enjoying petting the goats at the petting zoo. So since the kid had to leave but his sister didn't there was a temper tantrum in the parking lot that could be heard all the way to the other side of the farm. But the oxen got some extra grain that night, so I guess they won in the end.
