The Museum of Fine Arts is a wonderful place to explore. From Cyrus Dallin’s “Appeal to the Great Spirit’’ outside the building to—yes—the quilt exhibit inside, the museum brings a lot of culture to Boston.

But it’s no Catch A Rising Star. Hell, it’s not even comedy night at Prince House of Pizza up on Route 1. Thankfully, they didn’t try to out-laugh the original joke.

The Onion took aim at the august institution on Monday with the headline “Shitty Museum Doesn’t Even Have a Mona Lisa.’’ On Tuesday, the MFA shot back with these burns:

.@TheOnion finally calls us out. We would like to formally apologize for not having a Mona Lisa. http://t.co/IyeQ1Rm5vm — Museum of Fine Arts (@mfaboston) June 10, 2014


.@TheOnion readers, we hear your concerns. As a gesture of good will we will install a da Vinci exhibit next year: http://t.co/vJowECvr6R — Museum of Fine Arts (@mfaboston) June 10, 2014

In fairness, there’s not a lot the MFA could do. You can’t outfunny a staff that spends its entire day writing funny headlines, and getting snippy would be petty. Taking the punch and drawing attention to next year’s da Vinci exhibit was as good a response as the MFA could have made.

The museum’s response was better than the last big Boston-Onion kerfuffle over its story “Pretty Cute Watching Boston Residents Play Daily Game Of ‘Big City’.’’ That one hit us right in our communal gut, leading to endless chin-wagging and navel-gazing about how someone, somewhere doesn’t agree that we’re the best city ever. All over a joke.

Bully for the MFA for getting the tone just right. But what about the quilts? Won’t anyone defend these magnificent freaking quilts?