We cut it pretty close.  My wife, Victoria and I, took in the King Tut exhibit today in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center just a day before it went away, as the commercials said, “forever!”

There was a lot of hype when the exhibit passed through our country in the 70s.  Those around at the time will remember a bit of ‘Tut madness.’  I mean, even Steve Martin had a hit song playing on the radio about the boy king.  I don’t know if we saw that same exhibit.  I have a feeling this was like Tut-light.

The king, himself, wasn’t in the house…but lots of artifacts from his reign, his tomb and those of other pharaohs were on display.  I have to say, I was very impressed at all of the statues, the gold, etc.  But I couldn’t turn my mind off.  So, as a release, I’d just like to offer up some of the thoughts running through my head while perusing the exhibit:

• To be honest, after looking at those statues of the various pharaohs, most of them looked like Yul Brynner.
• Its said that in the tomb, they found seven beds.  He must have been expecting lots of company in the afterlife.  Then again, if you have seven beds, you can just sleep in a new bed each night and only make beds once a week.  Either that, or he lived for a while with seven Egyptian dwarves.
• The age of the Pharaohs was back in the years, B.C..    How confusing must that have been on New Year’s Eve? “OK, it’s midnight!  Let’s turn the calendar back a year!”
• They had one of two giant statues of King Tut on display, along with photos of what the two original versions looked like.  I gotta say, they were impressive!  Talk about a nice set of Tuts!
• And, of course, at the very end, we were treated to what was said to be THE ONLY wax replica of the Tut’s mummy in the world.  I’m sure they did their best job, but it still looked like it was made of putty.  Yes, I tot I taw a putty Tut.

There, now that’s out of my system.

OK, back to the real world now.  And the king has left the building.  Thank you, very much.  Thank you.

Tim Hunter