Jennifer:
Yes we all have our quirks.  Mine is when donors want
to view an object and then tries to handle it without
the proper percautions.  I have to mentally restrain
myself from smacking their hands. But then again, the
time and frantic searching (I worked at a museum whose
archives were in a "transitional phase") for an artifact
can pay off.

I had one donor who was absolutely convinced that her
mother's hand-made rug, which she had donated, had been
thrown away.  Her reasoning? The rug had never been put
on display.  The only way I could satisfy her was to show
her the rug.  We set up an appointment, I located the artifact
(the easy part) and brought it down out of storage
(the hard part).

While she viewed the rug, I explained how much the donation meant
to the museum, how we cared for the artifact, and that there
just hadn't been the right exhibit to properly showcase
such a wonderful example as this particular rug.  She left
happy and several months later we received another donation
from her that included several really wonderful items.

See? Sometimes it can pay off when dealing with those pesky
donors.  Oh, by the way, I won't tell you about the family
members who tried desperately to reverse a donation once
they saw how nice the artifact was.  You deal with all kinds.

Belinda