A friend’s birthday recently elapsed and since it was midweek I thought nothing of it.\u00a0 However festivities ensued the weekend after (this past weekend) to which I was part of at the last minute.\u00a0 The plan was a scavenger hunt for her presents all around town with me and another friend planting gifts just ahead of her path to ensure proper delivery.\u00a0 The gift locations were meaningful to the gift giver and giftee.<\/p>\n
Location 1: Gas station
\nWe had very specific instructions with this one to place it on pump 3.\u00a0 We drove around what seemed to be pumps with no numbers which made it somewhat tricky, but we finally discovered the numbering scheme and found that someone was actually pumping at pump 3.\u00a0 So we sat behind them waiting, which had to be akward for this person since we never got out and when he was done we moved up immediately.\u00a0 We waited patiently while munching on some kind of cheetos which weren’t what I asked for but tasty nevertheless for a text message stating the gift searcher’s location relative to us.\u00a0 We left the gift, a book, above the pump and hoped that no one would pull up to pump 3 after we left and headed out.<\/p>\n
Location 2:\u00a0 House
\nWe went to a house that we previously lived in and on the way I was thinking about how very horrifying it would be to see if the people living there would notice us planting an object somewhere around the place.\u00a0 Fortunately for us, the house was for rent and no one lived there currently.\u00a0 So we popped this present into the mailbox.\u00a0 Unfortunately for us, this location was literally 3 minutes from the previous location.\u00a0 So as we were driving to the next spot, the searching party drove directly beside us at the intersection.\u00a0 I yelled at my cohort to duck and I threw down my sun visor to obstruct the view of my face, but didn’t switch sides as their vehicle drove directly beside us.\u00a0 We get a text message saying that our giftee was in fact dumb, and didn’t notice us.\u00a0 We die laughing to the next spot.<\/p>\n
Location 3: Scary Restaurant
\nIn what can only be described as the worst part of town, we made headway to this remote restaurant that was apparently shut down.\u00a0 This is what I coined the warehouse district of the city but there were a couple of seedy looking houses overlooking us.\u00a0 We actually had no idea if this was the right spot or not, which is kind of frustrating as the driver.\u00a0 We decided this had to be it, there were no other restaurants around, and then hopped out of the car to find a suitable location for this gift.\u00a0 As we’re scouring around, we look to our right and notice someone staring us down from their screen door.\u00a0 Very uncomfortably we find a place to pop this present and hope that our buddy finds this thing.<\/p>\n
Location 4: Disc Golf Park
\nSo we’re comfortably ahead of our search party as we attach this gift to the bottom of a bench near tee #2.\u00a0 We’re sitting here waiting when all of a sudden we spot the search party’s vehicle turning into the park.\u00a0 My mind reels at the possibility of it not actually being them considering we didn’t get the warning text message, but I decide in the worst case scenario, we have to go.\u00a0 This is truly a hilarious setup since no other cars are in the vicinity and they parked exactly where we were not but 1 minute ago.\u00a0 Our clueless friend again, somehow, didn’t notice.\u00a0 As we’re making our getaway we get a text “HIDE!!!!”\u00a0 Clearly, some amount of delay occurred there.\u00a0 We laughed until we stopped.<\/p>\n
Location 5: Old job
\nSo we go to this old place of employment that my friends worked at.\u00a0 We stroll on in and there’s 2 girls on the phone.\u00a0 With a very very puzzled look on their faces, we explain our situation that we’re placing a gift here for a friend.\u00a0 One girl asks “Uhhh, is she coming to get this today?”\u00a0 We said yes and then they just sort of took the gift.\u00a0 This was an odd moment indeed as my friend breezed her way right to them all the way in the back of this office with no hesitation.\u00a0 She explained that if they got up it would screw up their actual job so she had to walk back there.\u00a0 It was gutsy and I thought she was going to punch them.\u00a0 Ok I didn’t think that, but it was funny because I was going to explain it all from the doorway in a non-menacing way but she just bullied her way to the back and gave them the run down.<\/p>\n
Location 6: The bar
\nWe hang out at this place every few weeks.\u00a0 It’s a nice place and our plan on the way there was to hand the gift off to the hostess.\u00a0 However since it’s early Sunday, there’s no hostess.\u00a0 So we waltz up to the bar and explain the situation to the bartender.\u00a0 He says no problem any place we want to hide it specifically?\u00a0 Does she have a favorite beer?\u00a0 I have no clue, but my friend knowing our friend better than me says “Yeah Guinness.”\u00a0 So he puts it behind the Guinness tap.\u00a0 When our friend finally arrives at the bar, she snoops around the foyer, the bar, and is completely stumped.\u00a0 The bartender asks her “Can I help you?”\u00a0 She says, “Yeah did anyone come by and leave anything?”\u00a0 He says “No, not that I know of.\u00a0 But can I get you a drink?” She says “No…” He follows up with a “Well how about a Guinness?”\u00a0 To which her quick reply is “Ok sure!”\u00a0 At this point the friend who was traveling with her says “WHAT!?\u00a0 We don’t have time to sit and drink a beer!”\u00a0 This friend looks at the bartender with a crazy look and the bartender gives her the nah-it’s-ok-this-is-supposed-to-happen look\/hand gesture.\u00a0 He then hands her the beer and the gift very coolly and doesn’t even charge her for the Guinness!\u00a0 We as the gift placers were not amused by this beer break!\u00a0 It is however totally funny in retrospect.\u00a0 Even without the beer, her next clue took her forever to decipher.<\/p>\n
Location 7: Coffee Shop
\nThe problem with this spot is that the coffee shop is closed and secondly in the middle of a shopping center.\u00a0 So there’s really no great place to hide anything.\u00a0 Did I mention it was a breezy day?\u00a0 This gift was a pillow, fairly light.\u00a0 So our conundrum was placing it in the wind, attaching it to the abandoned store, or doing something else.\u00a0 We looked over and saw a stack of newspapers which we could use to weigh down the present if placed in a bag.\u00a0 However as I approached this stack, I noticed a pair of old man glasses on top.\u00a0 I backed away like I discovered someone had peed on the object and the stank of this form of personal identification had slapped me in the face.\u00a0 Why? I don’t know, but it was an oddity.\u00a0 Anyway, we ended up putting it in a paper shopping bag and weighing it down with a water bottle.\u00a0 We also ended up sitting there for what had to be like 45 minutes.<\/p>\n
Location 8: Back to the starting point
\nThe final location was simple enough, it was go back home!\u00a0 Strangely, it took a while for our scavenging friend.\u00a0 Overall I think it took over 2.5 hours total.\u00a0 It was pretty great though, except for the more difficult clues to the next locations.\u00a0 Mostly that was just boredom on our end, but I’m certain it was probably more exciting for the seeker.\u00a0 Did I mention a dog was so scared to have me hold it, it pooped all over me?\u00a0 Yes this was in the beginning of the story and actually created a nice diversion to account for me and my teammate not being around when the birthday girl arrived.\u00a0 It was pretty funny, even to me, the poopee.\u00a0 The pizza and birthday pie made up for it.\u00a0 Plus I’m pretty used to animals doing crazy things, mostly throwing up, but even so, pretty tolerant of such things so it was no big deal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend’s birthday recently elapsed and since it was midweek I thought nothing of it.\u00a0 However festivities ensued the weekend after (this past weekend) to which I was part of at the last minute.\u00a0 The plan was a scavenger hunt for her presents all around town with me and another friend planting gifts just ahead […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nothing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=514"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":518,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514\/revisions\/518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.timothyhanson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}