Do Not Touch

Today the family and I went to a cave, which was pretty cool. At the beginning of the tour, the guide instructed us that we were not to touch the walls or rocks. I have never, in my life, wanted to touch a rock so badly. I am positive that if the guide hadn't told me not to, then I wouldn't have wanted to. I'm not the only one who wanted to either. You could see the aching desire clearly written onto the faces of each of my family members, and the yearning had us all on edge, so much so that we all became livid if anyone even came close to touching the wall, such as in the case where my three-year-old nephew accidentally hit his head on a low hanging structure and every single one of us turned and hissed at him that he was not to touch the walls. By the end we were all half crazed and it was apparent that this madness was tearing us apart. The tour guide had to have known of this; in her hundreds of tours through the cave, she must have, at least once, noticed the wild-eyed twitching of her charges.

Shouldn't this sort of thing be taken into account when leading a group of humans through anything, be it a museum, cave, or what have you? There is no better way to get an entire group of people wanting nothing more than to put their hands on something than if you tell them not to.

My only guess is that the guides have become bitter for having lead group after group of annoying tourists through the same sequence of rooms, giving the same tired out speech about the same things week after week that they have finally begun to take revenge by driving every member of the tour completely mad. There is no way to prevent this madness. Those tour guides are a sneaky bunch.
Be strong, readers. They revel in your pain; don't give them the satisfaction.
Do not touch.