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The day I found the impossible object started like any other; I got up at sparrow’s fart, crawled in to work under the influence of industrial strength caffeine, fed the hamsters and cranked up the computer.

But before we go any further, Dear Reader, perhaps a little background wouldn’t go amiss here.  About 5 years ago I came across a record on the database which detailed…………or rather didn’t detail……an ‘unidentified object’, and gave its location as ‘location unrecorded’.  Oh yes, I said to myself, was that record made after a hefty pub lunch (it was written on the 2nd March, a Friday as it happens) or was it an attempt to catalogue an impossible object?The Impossible Object soon became the Holy Grail of store management.  I imagined wild and wonderful things; was it a narwhal’s tusk, or a finely chased silver pectoral, or William Henry Fox Talbot’s spare camera?Unfortunately……………but let’s digress a bit further.

You see, every item in the Museum’s collection has an individual and unique number.  The Impossible Object’s number is 1990-33/58, this means it entered the Museum in 1990, it is part of the 33rd group to do so and it is number 58 within that group.  Our collections management database, called MODES, is ordered by number, and every piece of information we have about an individual object is added to that electronic record. Or not, as the case may be.

  A big part of my job is ferreting nosily in boxes in the stores; in fact it’s a bit like Christmas every day because all I do is open boxes and find fabulous objects, and that’s how I found the Impossible Object. The box was labelled, rather

intriguingly, ‘Bus material’, so I opened it up and emptied it in preparation for auditing, cleaning and photographing its contents. 1990-33/18, a ticket rack; yep. Click, flash, clean.  1990-33/17, a conductor’s ticket machine; yep. Click, flash, polish.  1990-33/58…………Yes!  Yes! Oh YES! (All those expensive acting lessons from Meg Ryan had finally paid off.) There it was, lying in the bottom of the box, neatly but tightly secured in taped bubble wrap; long, slim, and enigmatic.  

I lifted it gingerly, and then couldn’t contain myself……… ripping off the bubble wrap………nearly crying with anticipation………yes……..oh! Yes ……….Oh…………WHAT? Um.

There it was, lying across my hands in all its simple glory, long, slim and enigmatic, but very obviously not a narwhal’s tusk.  And I know that early Victorian plate cameras were simple things compared to today’s digital machines, but it wasn’t one of those either.  I suddenly understood the lack of information on the record - Object name; unidentified object.  Beautifully made in laminated wood with a copper riveted brass fitting at either end……….but still……….an unidentified object.

 So this, Dear Reader, is where you come in.  I need your ideas, your thoughts on the function of this object. The only clue we have is that it is part of a group of bus related items.  It might even be part of the bus itself.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it………….

 Coffee …………..need more coffee…………….