I Just Went All Rachael Ray On Your Ass

After the Met raised its suggested donation (emphasis on “suggested”) to $20, the Times conducts a sociological experiment of sorts to determine the precise level of scorn heaped upon cheapskates by passive-aggressive ticket booth clerks. Now we know:

The first clerk had clearly heard it all, so many times before: the cheapskate’s whisper, the tone of moral calculus and finally the question, delivered with a sheepish grin: “What do I really have to pay?”

Veteran visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art usually weigh the decision silently, even guiltily, as they stand before the cash register that serves as portal to one of the world’s greatest art collections. Tourists rarely think to ask, and just fork it over.

But on Thursday, the day after word went around that the Met had decided to raise its suggested admission price to $20 — the same lofty figure that has earned the Museum of Modern Art its share of municipal scorn (at the Modern, it is mandatory, not just suggested) — The New York Times dispatched a reporter with a pocket full of quarters to conduct a small, slightly mischievous sociological experiment.

He went up to five different cashiers, asked the question, humbly proffered 50 cents and waited to measure the levels of scorn that would pour down upon his head.

In truth, there was not much noticeable scorn. There was, instead, that brand of aggressive disregard particular to New York that is sometimes much more effective in evoking shame and extracting money. The first clerk who was approached, a large man with a goatee, never even looked up from his screen when asked.

“It’s just suggested,” he mumbled.

“What if I only have 50 cents?” he was asked.

“Uh-huh,” he answered, staring momentarily at the two coins plunked into his palm before ringing up $15 on the cash register, punching in a 50-cent subtraction and sliding over a green metal admission button with the detachment of a Vegas dealer parting with a dollar chip. If he had been trained in a psy-ops camp in the most effective ways of wounding a conscience, he could have done no better.

And if not Rachael Ray, then those notorious cheapskates at $9.99 . . .