Today I’d like to take a break from my regularly scheduled eBaymania to brag about a few other people doing Amazing Feats of Awesomeness.
Earlier this month, my cousin, Michelle, Robert and their son, Chase, entered the Alibi Newspaper’s 1st Annual Scavenger Hunt. Now, my cousins are incredibly creative, talented and smart. They’re also obsessive, competitive, complete know-it-alls. Sound at all familiar? Yeah. It’s not just me. That’s 90% of our entire extended family right there.
(And so many of my bosses wonder why I’m such an incurable perfectionist. If it wouldn’t be wierd, not to mention incredibly detrimental, I’d list “Family: Adams, standard type-A personality” under the skills section of my resume as a way of letting people know I have impossibly high standards and am difficult to manage. “Hm. You want me to do this your way? Interesting. Here’s an idea – I think I should do it MY way. Why? Because I’m right. DUH. ” This could save everyone a lot of time.)
Back in February my cousins tried to sucker me into attending the 2006 Herald Hunt by attempting to disguise the event as ‘going to Miami for a fun vacation’. Upon closer investigation, this actually turns out to be five hours of psychotic chaos in which HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF INSANE PEOPLE SWARM DOWNTOWN MIAMI HUNTING FOR WIERD CRAP USING CLUES THOUGHT UP BY DAVE BARRY.
All I could see was a picture of me, Travis, Bob and Michelle standing under the blazing Miami sun arguing over the meaning of a price sticker on a deflated soccer ball outside a mom & pop sports store while desperately trying not to be trampled by 9,996 sweaty, obnoxious tourists.
I have a ten-foot personal space zone and a HUGE problem with looking stupid. Which happens often enough. Put me in the middle of the world’s biggest scavenger hunt? I have a hard time just finding my car at the mall.
So when responding to their invitation, I tried my best to let them down gently by explaining the limitations of my patience for a situation such as this.
“Hell. No.”
To which they were crushed. Truly. It took them a whole day to get over it. Never ones to be deterred, it appears they have carried on in their scavenging quests without me.
Last week the Alibi Newspaper announced the winners of their 1st Annual Scavenger Hunt. In 48 hours, Bob & Chase racked up 4,500 points hunting down most of the Albuquerquean crap on this list.
Things I would go after as the surest way of crossing items off, so as to avoid being a loser who wasted all her time looking for hard things and ended up crossing nothing off:
- A local winery (40 pts)
- Epically huge red arrow sticking out of the ground (10 pts)
- An ear of roasted corn (15 pts)
- A petroglyph (20 pts)
- A ristra (20 pts)
- A duck (30 pts)
Things I’m pretty sure nobody wants to find:
- The mayor (300 pts)
- The governor (400 pts)
The wierdest, most obscure things on the planet, let alone on the list, that Bob & Chase found:
- Someone in a Luche Libre wrestling mask (30 pts)
- The Center of the Universe (50 pts)
- A paleta salesperson with cart (80 pts)
- An inverted double rainbow (500 pts)
- Mosaic tiled-car ‘art’ (100 pts)
What they won:
- 2-week fitness course taught by former Navy SEAL Daniel Sampson
- Style makeover from the Urban Academy (Bumble & Bumble?!)
- 6 passes to the Explora Science Center & Children’s Museum
Certainly there are easier ways to get in shape, update your look and spend a day with the kid.
But they’re probably not as fun.
Way to go, Foxes!
*Lucha libre – Spanish, “free-style fighting”. Padre e Hijo – Spanish, “Father and Son”
© 2006 – 2011, jules.maas. All rights reserved.
