Without dedicated bonding time, family members grow resentful of one another’s bad habits, such as cheating at Monopoly and warming socks in the toaster. Preserve familial unity with this deal to see the Spy: The Exhibit, CIA Gadgets & Stories Revealed exhibit at Discovery Times Square. Choose between the following options:

• For $13, you get one ticket for a child aged 4–12 (a $26.13 value, including all fees). Children younger than 4 are admitted for free.

• For $17, you get one ticket for an adult (up to a $34.30 value, including all fees).<p>

A poison-dart gun disguised as an umbrella. A listening device at the center of a hollowed-out tooth. A radio-controlled catfish for infiltrating enemy territory. These might seem like things you’d read about in a pulp spy novel, but the real-world stories behind these scarcely believable gadgets are revealed in Spy: The Exhibit, CIA Gadgets & Stories Revealed. For the first time, the CIA has opened its vaults and unveiled the closely guarded history of some of the most inventive and deceptive whatchamacallits. The family-friendly exhibit keeps the inquisitive on their tippy-toes with such interactive challenges as an actual navigable laser field, a cunning encryption game, and a game of telephone with highly sensitive information about Area 51.

Though the exhibit heavily emphasizes the high-tech devices and masterfully planned gambits that are part and parcel of international intrigue, some displays feature more mundane items that nevertheless played a crucial role in world history, such as the ice axe that killed Trotsky and a collapsible scooter that was instrumental to American agents in World War II. Describing the newly revealed inventions and stories, Edward Rothstein of the New York Times wrote, “What happens along the way is that we gain an appreciation for the magic as well as the method; we end up glimpsing what these ordinary objects actually accomplished and what was at stake when they were used… even with its gadget-centered focus, we learn that this great bag of tricks was no mere game.”