"The First __________"

At long last, the entire purpose of my summer in D.C. has come to pass. My internship at one of the museums on the National Mall here has begun! I work with the Office of Public Programming (OPP), and have great supervisors and great co-interns. It is a blast so far. One of the best things about my specific duties is how much time I spend on the floor interacting with visitors. Just the other day, in fact, I witnessed an event that brought to my attention an unfortunate misunderstanding of what sorts of things museums hold, which I would like to here correct.
I was in the Star-Spangled Banner exhibition, where the very flag that Francis Scott Key himself saw that inspired the writing of our national anthem is kept. In the exhibit there is a display case of some of the sewing tools from the time that the flag-maker, Mary Pickersgill, would have made the flag. As I was standing by said display case, a little boy came rushing up to it, his eyes alight with excitement and wonder. He stared at the case, gasped, and pointing at the scissors inside turned to his mother and said, "Look, Mom! The first scissors!"
And although it was one of my favorite things anyone has said yet, and although many museums do have original artifacts, and although I too would prefer to believe that those were the very first scissors ever, I must here repudiate the unfortunate misconception that if an item is in a museum, it must be the first of its kind. I would like to think that I could tell my child that when they get excited about seeing the first scissors, or key, or feather-duster, or what-have-you, but when it comes right down to it I will probably respond just as that boy's mother did, with a voice filled with as much awe as theirs, and say, "wow, that really is amazing, isn't it son?" After all, why ruin their childhood sense of wonder? So, I think I for one will adopt a policy of treating the first scissors rather like Santa Clause, and until children are a little older, all they will ever know is that those scissors are indeed the very first. Ever.